Across the United States, affordable housing providers face a dual challenge: rising operating costs, placing additional pressure on residents and owners, and increasing regulatory pressure from State and municipal agencies to lower carbon emissions. At the same time, low-income households are disproportionately burdened by high utility bills, spending a higher percentage of their income on energy than the average household (often twice as much). Low-income communities are also disproportionately affected by climate change, facing greater exposure to extreme heat, flooding, and air quality issues with fewer resources to adapt. Energy efficiency isn’t just a climate strategy in this sector - it’s an affordability strategy, a health strategy, and a long-term asset-preservation strategy.
That’s why Nuveen Real Estate is partnering with Cambio to identify, prioritize, and implement high-impact energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction upgrades across its affordable housing portfolio. And the results are already significant.
Identifying High-Impact Opportunities at Scale
Using Cambio’s platform, Nuveen Real Estate has evaluated 129 affordable housing properties, identifying 896 viable retrofit projects. Collectively, these opportunities represent:
● 9.2 million in annual energy cost savings
● 42,985 tonnes of CO₂e avoided each year - the equivalent of removing approximately 9,300 passenger cars from the road annually (source)
These improvements not only lower operating costs for owners - they also directly reduce energy cost burdens for residents.
Cambio's analysis reveals a clear framework for sequencing these investments, with two groups of opportunities that are particularly relevant for affordable housing portfolios:
Near-term opportunities (under 3 years payback): Lighting upgrades, controls enhancements, and targeted HVAC replacements consistently deliver the fastest payback periods, making them ideal early-stage investments. They require relatively low capital, deliver immediate energy reductions, and offer predictable financial returns. Domestic hot water system upgrades also show strong promise, particularly in multifamily affordable housing where hot water loads are high and equipment is often outdated.
Medium-term opportunities (3–6 year payback): These projects fall within typical affordable housing hold periods and are well-suited to be evaluated alongside other planned capital needs - especially for building systems approaching end of life. Building envelope improvements, for example, deliver deeper long-term carbon reductions and asset-preservation benefits, and are a critical part of a long-term decarbonization pathway.
Before teams can implement these projects, however, they need clear scopes and reliable data - two areas where the traditional audit-based approach has significant limitations.
How Cambio Removes Bottlenecks and Accelerates Project Delivery
Traditional energy audits are one of the biggest barriers to implementing upgrades at scale - they often cost $10,000–$50,000 per building and take three to six months to complete, making an audit-first model too slow and too expensive for large affordable housing portfolios. Cambio eliminates this bottleneck by generating audit-free, contractor-ready project scopes directly from building data.
Armed with clear specifications, cost estimates, and expected outcomes, asset managers and operating partners can request bids immediately and coordinate with local facility teams without waiting for on-site assessments. Cambio also provides instant access to detailed equipment lists and system-level data, reducing back-and-forth and enabling partners to move quickly.
By mapping every HVAC, DHW, lighting, and envelope opportunity across the portfolio, Cambio helps teams identify the right specialists, pursue bulk purchasing strategies, and manage multi-property rollout plans. The result is faster bid cycles, smoother collaboration with operating partners, and more projects advancing across a distributed portfolio-turning insights into action and accelerating energy and carbon reductions at scale.
Nuveen Real Estate’s affordable housing portfolio is already translating these portfolio-wide insights into concrete, on-the-ground upgrades across its affordable housing communities. Projects underway include completing remaining LED fixture conversions to reduce lighting energy use with fast paybacks, evaluating onsite solar PV opportunities across California properties to deliver long-term clean energy savings, and replacing conventional electric resistance water heaters with high-efficiency heat pump water heating systems to cut both operating costs and emissions. Together, these initiatives reflect a practical, phased approach - starting with proven efficiency measures like lighting and domestic hot water improvements, while also advancing deeper decarbonization investments such as renewable energy deployment - ensuring meaningful cost relief for residents alongside measurable carbon reductions across the portfolio.
Why Energy Efficiency Matters Even More in Affordable Housing
In affordable housing, energy efficiency touches every dimension of resident well-being and property stewardship:
Lower resident utility cost burden
Utility bills consume ~7% of low-income household income - double the national average. Efficiency upgrades directly improve affordability. The U.S. EPA estimates that bringing low-income homes to average U.S. efficiency levels could reduce energy cost burdens by 35%, highlighting the enormous impact potential of Nuveen’s strategy.
Improved comfort and health
Better insulation, sealing, equipment, and ventilation lead to warmer winters, cooler summers, and healthier indoor air quality and environments.
Property preservation
Efficient systems reduce wear on buildings, mitigate moisture and ventilation issues, and help maintain long-term asset quality.
Reduced arrearages and turnover
More comfortable, affordable units foster resident satisfaction and stability-reducing costly vacancy cycles.
Supporting Nuveen’s Global Sustainability Commitments
Nuveen Real Estate has set ambitious global climate goals. In its latest sustainability report, Nuveen announced it has already met its target to reduce portfolio-wide energy intensity by 30% - five years ahead of schedule. The firm is now working toward:
● 50% carbon intensity reduction by 2030
● Net zero carbon-aligned business plans
● Whole-building data capture for 50% of global floor area
● Assessing onsite solar feasibility across the portfolio
Cambio is helping Nuveen achieve these goals through:
● Carbon and energy use tracking
● Financial roadmaps for decarbonization projects
● Utility performance tracking with automatic ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager syncing
● Highlighting local incentives and rebate programs to support implementation
Cambio also supports regulatory compliance across jurisdictions like New York City's Local Law 97 and Boston's BERDO - and goes further by helping Nuveen stay ahead of emerging compliance curves. By surfacing upcoming regulatory requirements before they take effect, Cambio enables proactive planning and positions Nuveen's affordable housing portfolio to meet future standards without the cost and disruption of last-minute retrofits.
A Scalable Model for Impact
As McKinsey highlights, the world cannot meet climate targets by waiting for old buildings to retire. Retrofitting existing buildings is essential and represents one of the most cost effective opportunities available to address climate change.
For affordable housing, the case is even stronger: energy efficiency is one of the few strategies that simultaneously reduces emissions, reduces costs, improves health, and preserves deeply needed housing stock.
Nuveen’s deployment of Cambio across their affordable housing portfolio demonstrates what’s possible when technology, data, and real estate investment align. By identifying over $9 million in potential annual savings opportunities and tens of thousands of tonnes of avoided CO₂e, Nuveen is charting a path that delivers meaningful benefits to residents, operators, investors, and the environment.
Cambio is proud to help scale energy efficiency across Nuveen’s affordable housing sector at large.
Sources:
EPA – Energy Efficiency in Affordable Housing (2018 Guide
U.S. EIA – Residential Energy Consumption & Energy Burden Data
ACEEE – Low-Income Housing Energy Burden & Efficiency Potential (2016
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies – Rental Housing & Utility Cost Burdens
New York Fed / – Affordable Housing & the Energy Transition (2022
PNNL – Energy Audit Guide for Commercial Buildings
Nuveen Real Estate – Sustainability Report & Net Zero Carbon Pathway (2024)
