Ian Perterer: 0:08

Hey there and welcome back to the Energy Beat podcast. Today we're talking about money, specifically climate finance. With major legislative and regulatory changes reshaping how money flows or doesn't into clean energy, questions of who finances what and how are front and center like never before. Two of the players stepping into this conversation are green banks and community development financial institutions, or CDFIs. They are emerging as powerful options in the climate finance world that you may or may not be familiar with. That's why, in today's episode, we're digging into their role in this fast-changing landscape. We'll cover how green banks are helping channel investments into clean energy, how CDFIs are expanding access for communities and businesses.

Ian Perterer: 0:56

Traditional lenders often miss the unique role both play in supporting vulnerable energy programs and the challenges and opportunities ahead as climate finance continues to evolve. So to help unpack it all, I'm joined by two fantastic guests Shawna Cuan, ceo of Sustain Energy Finance, a Salt Lake City-based green bank, and Chris Kramer of CK Finance, who's worked extensively with CDFIs and energy organizations nationwide. So let's dive in, Shawna and Chris. Welcome to the show, Shawna. How are things in Salt Lake City? We were just there recently at our conference.

Shawna Cuan: 1:39

Thanks so much, ian. Really excited to be here Things in Salt Lake are very active, as you just saw with the AESP conference and very excited to see where we're going to go next.

Ian Perterer: 1:51

Yeah, and Chris, you're joining us from the East Coast. We're on the East Coast, and how are you today?

Chris Kramer: 1:57

I'm doing well. Thanks very much for having me on the podcast. I split my time between Vermont and New Hampshire. I'm currently in New Hampshire today, but things are active in the Northeast as always.

Ian Perterer: 2:10

I'd like to start off with just a very, very basic question and, Shawna, I guess I'll direct this one at you Can you explain what a green bank is and what kind of work they do?

Shawna Cuan: 2:25

Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, you know, it's kind of one of those issues where I think we pick the name first and then we started defining what we do, and then we're like, oh, it's not really the best way to describe what we are and what we do, but the name is stuck, so we're kind of working with it as best we can. And what's interesting about green banks is it's become this umbrella term for lenders that operate in a couple of different ways. So there's a couple of green banks, many of which are at the state level, some are at the regional level, some are local, some are national in scope, and so we're kind of a big old variety of different type of entities. And then, to further confuse things a little bit, some of us are actually public entities or quasi public entities and some of us are non-profit institutions. But the thing that does collectively bring us all together is that we are established really with the vision and purpose financing energy projects and related projects, and that related projects category is getting a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger, just as we see this interconnection of energy with so many other facets of need within our relative communities.

Shawna Cuan: 3:30

But I think the other thing that's important to understand with green banks, and what makes us a little bit different than what might come to mind immediately when you hear the term green bank, is that we're actually a bank. So again, it's a terminology, it's something that we live with now, but it's not necessarily reflective of exactly who we are. So a typical traditional bank actually takes a deposit right, you think of a brick and mortar building. You go there, you deposit with a teller or you go to an ATM. We don't do that, so we don't hold deposits, but we do end up investing our capital into projects and then that capital gets paid back to us and then we reinvest it into projects with the idea that we're providing this perpetual long-term support to our relative communities. So hopefully that clarifies a little bit about the terminology on green banks and set some of the stage for today's conversation.

Ian Perterer: 4:21

Okay, and then, Chris, you work with green banks, but you also work with community development financial institutions, or CDFIs. What makes a lender a CDFI, and how are they similar or different to a green bank?

Chris Kramer: 4:47

Cdfi stands for Community Development Financial Institution and there are a couple of things that make them sort of what they are. Probably the most fundamental is that term community. So they are set up to invest in low income and underserved communities and they can take a couple of different forms. I think often when people think of CDFIs they think it's a little bit more of like an investment bank or even venture capital, where they're not actually taking deposits but they do have funding on their balance sheet that they can invest.

Chris Kramer: 5:16

But there are also a number of credit unions that have CDFI certification as well and they do take deposits, but they are set up specifically to serve low-income communities as well, and they do take deposits, but they are set up specifically to serve low-income communities as well. They really run the gamut across market sectors. So they cover single families, small business multifamily is a big part of the industry and they cover both the building sector as well as the small business sector. So you'll see a lot of investments in homes and business-owned buildings, community nonprofit buildings and a lot of multifamily buildings. And then you'll also see CDFIs that invest in small business growth as well.

Ian Perterer: 6:02

Okay, perfect. So it sounds like there is a certification component to that right. You can't just spring up and decide that you're going to be a CDFI one day. There's a rigorous vetting and process that people have to go through in order to get that designation.

Chris Kramer: 6:17

That's right and I'm glad you followed up on that, because it's a US Treasury certification and actually not only do you have to be certified initially, but you have to be recertified on an annual basis, and part of that certification has to do with where and how you're investing, but part of it also has to do with what additional community services, technical assistance, other kinds of community activities you're carrying out. So, unlike a traditional bank, you have some additional requirements in order to meet that certification on an ongoing basis.

Ian Perterer: 6:50

Perfect, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that, okay. So now that we've got a lay of the land out of the way, I think it's kind of fundamental so that our listeners understand your backgrounds and where you're coming from and what you're going to bring to the conversation today. Shawna, you work for Sustain Energy Finance, which is a green bank, so tell us about your organization. You're relatively new. You were founded in 2023. So can you tell us a little bit about that and what some of your organizational goals are?

Shawna Cuan: 7:18

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate the question and, just as a little bit of background, I come from the energy policy space and I've been working in Utah for about 10 years now and I started out actually in the governor's office of energy development, and financing has always been a need in Utah. We have a lot of opportunity in our space and we also are a very business oriented state, so increasingly, financing is just one of those solution sets that's very attractive within our state and is something that's really viable over the longer term. And when I was in the governor's office we helped pass the CPACE legislation Some folks may be familiar with that commercial property assessed clean energy. We had a revolving loan fund, and so financing was just something that became more and more relevant in the kind of work we were doing. Financing was just something that became more and more relevant in the kind of work we were doing, and while I was there I was like gosh, it'd be great if we could have some kind of lending entity in a much more comprehensive way. And I had the opportunity a couple of years ago when I met my co-founder, sean, to actually put some effort into this and we had started to see a lot this Trinity Lender Green Bank model take the form of nonprofits and we're like, huh, that's really interesting because it provides some agility and flexibility to how to tackle these issues and the way that Utah is. It's supportive of the concept, but it's maybe not going to be the type of state that's going to stand up its own green bank and then capitalize it directly. So we're like maybe this is really the opportunity to move forward and stand something like this up. And so two years ago, like you said, ian, we stood up a sustained energy finance as a nonprofit institution.

Shawna Cuan: 8:54

And in the near term, what we're really focused on is addressing the nexus of energy and affordable housing.

Shawna Cuan: 9:01

Utah is not unique. We have a major affordable housing crisis, but we already have we're already 50,000 affordable housing units short, and it's just going to get worse. Our population is expected to double and so affordability and housing are just you know very much at a crisis point for us and that's where we have the greatest amount of need. So what we're focused on the near term is deploying our capital into residential retrofit, into new build for multifamily, and really focusing on how these types of projects can have energy efficiency components. They can be more resilient, they can be healthier and safer is how we can help transform our community here in Utah bringing in other fellow lenders like CDFIs and credit unions to Chris's point bringing in our traditional banks as well, and helping bring a lot of more capital into our market, because our demand is not going to be going away and we really want to be able to demonstrate that in a state like Utah and the way that we work is something that can actually scale and replicate across the country.

Ian Perterer: 10:04

Thank you. Thank you for that insight and, Chris, you are with CK Finance and I'm pretty sure I know what the CK stands for so why don't you tell us a little bit about your company, your background, what you're doing and what your?

Chris Kramer: 10:17

plans are. So I've been an independent consultant now for a number of years but I work with sort of two sets of clients, maybe three. One is at the national level. I do a lot of work with the US Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The two of those work closely together doing energy-related financing research across the 50 states and District of Columbia and other territories as well, across the 50 states and District of Columbia and other territories as well, and try to suss out some of the best practices around financing that are going on in those states. What's worked particularly well, what challenges have state programs faced and how can we spread that information across the 50 states so that lessons learned are taken in by all of the states and then programs that are working well can be replicated.

Chris Kramer: 11:10

But then I also do work directly with programs on the ground. I worked, for example, for a number of years with utility energy efficiency programs in Connecticut, which had some of their own financing programs, but also worked closely with the Connecticut Green Bank. I've worked with some of the financing financing programs but also worked closely with the Connecticut Green Bank. I've worked with some of the financing programs in California. If you're familiar with Go Green Financing that's one of their flagship green financing programs and other state and local programs like that. So mostly I work on program design, advising on program oversight how are things going, how can things be improved and then to some degree also on evaluation, so kind of on the back end, how you know how have things gone, what are the impacts of the programs and what improvements can be made.

Ian Perterer: 11:58

So, for people who are unfamiliar with green lenders, what resources are available for them to learn about the lenders in their community or state?

Shawna Cuan: 12:07

Yeah, it's complicated, so it's helpful to have a place to start right, and one of the things that I'm very happy to say we're a founding member of is the Green Bank 50, so the GB50.

Shawna Cuan: 12:17

So we're holding on to the name, we'll stick with it, but it is a member-driven organization of the 50 plus state local, regional green banks that are operating throughout the continental US, alaska, hawaii and the territories, and so that's a really great place to start to understand what that community lender green bank presence is in your region and if they have alignment between the types of projects you have and the kind of financing they have available. As I mentioned, our focus is very heavily on that housing piece and we're doing a little bit of distributed energy generation as well, but some of our peers are very focused in other spaces, whether it's electrified vehicles or it's community solar, and so I strongly recommend checking out the GB50 and seeing how you can connect with us through that mechanism, because we're all involved on a regular basis in communicating with the GB50. And they're great in serving as a connector and really becoming that network mode for all of us so that we can hopefully keep on tackling all these needs and then putting together some really great projects.

Chris Kramer: 13:22

So, and I want to emphasize and Sean alluded to this before as well but to be really clear, green banks and CDFIs work together all the time. I think. With utility rates going up and with affordability becoming more and more of a challenge, cdfis have really been there now for a number of years, a number of decades even, to help low-income communities meet affordability challenges, not just in energy, but kind of across the board. And so right now, when I think everybody is kind of looking around thinking, oh boy, how do we reach these communities, how do we make these projects as affordable as they can be, and also, how do we do it responsibly? And how do we reach the communities? Who are our partners that might have those connections?

Chris Kramer: 14:11

Cdfis are a great place to look for that type of work and I will say there are a number of CDFIs who already are working in the energy space. My website, ckfinancingcom, has a map of 127 green lending programs that are run by different CDFIs across the country. So this is an area that certainly can be expanding but also has a great foundation now. But you also can look up the CDFIs that are in your state or area, and there are a number that serve multiple states as well, and if they aren't doing specific green lending, there's a good chance that they're doing lending that covers energy-related items in any case, and may be very open to a conversation around how do we expand on that to make these projects even more affordable? At the end of the day, I think one of the reasons financing is so important right now is just, you know, fundamentally, financing is there to help make projects more affordable. That's really what we're here for as an industry, and that's only becoming more challenging, and so you know, please, please, reach out.

Ian Perterer: 15:28

Absolutely, and you know I think one of the I liked that you mentioned that it's not an either, or that you know a project could. Essentially, you know, depending on the balance of what the Green Bank does and what the CDFI does, there is the opportunity. So we talked about, you know, financial incentive stacking, but you could do financial lending stacking on a specific project. Which leads me to a question that just kind of popped into my head A lot of their organizations. They've never worked or tried to apply for funding through a green bank or a CDFI before. If someone's listening to this podcast afterwards and they decide they want to look into something like this, what should they be prepared to provide? A CDFI or a green bank in order to help them decide whether they want to invest in this specific opportunity or project? Let's start with Shawna.

Shawna Cuan: 16:28

Thanks, ian Gosh. That's such a great question and you know, in fact I was working on sort of a go-no-go list on behalf of municipalities, because we're having a really similar conversation, like, well, what do we even need to kind of get started right. And that can be a pretty daunting question in and of itself when perhaps you've never done any kind of financing project, let alone an energy financing project, perhaps you've never done any kind of financing project, let alone an energy financing project. And one of the ways that what's really interesting and it goes to the partnerships with CDFIs and it goes to where GreenMakes are trying to operate increasingly we're really also trying to recognize the need for technical assistance, so not to add even more jargon to it, but we're acknowledging, you know, energy projects inherently have a level of expertise that may not be widely available, and then you pair it with financing, another level of expertise that may not be widely available. So you're taking two different industries that have largely been operating separately for a very long time, and then you're asking them to talk to each other, and that's a bit of a challenging ask, and so we are really trying to refine what you need in order to be effective when you come into a conversation with us and one of the things that we're trying to you know we're going to come up with checklists and have all those kinds of things but really from our perspective, it's very valuable to know the details of your project.

Shawna Cuan: 17:47

What are you trying to accomplish with that project, what's your timeline for it, what work has already been done on that project, what would you need financing for? And then who's really the recipient of that financing, who's going to be the ultimate borrower? Because then it's kind of a little bit of a decision tree matrix from there. Right, if we're talking about working with the municipality, it's making sure they have the right authority to take on financing and working with them through that process with maybe an individual corporation or company. We're going to want to look at their financials, we're going to want to look at any potential collateral needs, and so it does ultimately depend.

Shawna Cuan: 18:25

But I realize I'm making it sound a little bit intimidating, but really what I want to kind of encourage is just reach out to start, and then many of us are prepared to say, yeah, we get it. This is kind of your first go at this. Here's what we would look for from you, and really the intention here is to be a partner and walk through that process with you and not just be sort of this wall that's really inaccessible, but an opportunity to ask questions so that we can answer them and really be a resource beyond just the financing. We can kind of help answer those types of questions too.

Ian Perterer: 18:56

And what about? What about CDFIs, chris? I'm kind of wondering, even almost in the back of my head does that US Treasury designation make it a little bit more intricate in terms of, like, your evaluation process and what you have to go through and prove and do the due diligence on?

Chris Kramer: 19:14

Not as much as you would think. The regulations around CDFI certification are less around. You know there are other types of bank regulation that apply to you know, kind of risk mitigation and things like that. How much capital do you need on hand, what kinds of risks can you take? That's not the main focus of the oversight of CDFIs. It's more around what I mean of course there is. You know they have to be prudent around all of those things too. But when we talk about the treasury certification of CDFIs, that's really more around who are they serving and are they serving the purpose that they're really set up to do? So, if anything, actually it's a plus, I would say, rather than a restriction, that they are set up that way, because then you can go in with some confidence that, hey, this is a partner that's really set up to work with me, even if I may have some challenges. And I want to just really echo what Shana said, which is start the conversation first. I mean I can answer your question and I can go through some of the details.

Chris Kramer: 20:16

But I think both GreenBanks and CD5s, one of the things they share is they're really, really good. I mean, of course you can always find exceptions, but in general they're really really good listeners and they really want to work with you and they're flexible. It doesn't mean they'll just take on any project, but they want to find a way to make things work. They're not just cookie cutter transactions. They're willing to sort of say, okay, this sounds interesting, it sounds like you're in the right place. How do we get from A to Z? So pick up the phone, send the email, find out who your green bank is, if you've got one, find out who your green bank is, if you've got one, find out who the CDFIs are in your territory and do the outreach CDFIs to Shawna point also provide a lot of technical assistance. So you don't have to necessarily know everything from the beginning.

Chris Kramer: 21:04

I think the other thing I just want to say briefly in the answer to your question is just thinking about who the listeners are. You know there are folks who may be reaching out because they have a project and that's sort of one set of criteria. You know how risky is this project, what are the sources of funding, all those kinds of things. There are also, I can imagine, some listeners who are a little bit more involved at like the programmatic level, who might want to have a conversation around. Look, I am either, you know, utility or utility contractor, or just maybe a very successful contractor in an area, and I would like to talk with you about how to bring a portfolio and certain types of projects to you and how can we work together to make that happen. And I think both CDFIs and green banks are really interested in having those kinds of conversations as well.

Ian Perterer: 21:56

I think what I find interesting and hopeful about that is I think there are so many people who come when it comes to the financing discussion based on their personal experiences with financing and lending or whatever really do think it's going to be.

Ian Perterer: 22:13

You know, a credit scores check, run down the list sort of transaction where it sounds like both for CDFIs and Shana, for the Green Bank of Sustainable Energy Finance, a large portion of it is about the outcomes, and so we're both talking about CDFIs and and and sustained energy finance. You have this focus on underserved communities and, with everything going on in the world right now, I think it's important for us knowledge. Usually one of the first things to take a hit is a program that serves an underserved community because in some cases, for utilities or something like that, you're not in it to make the money. The way you are on a commercial project or something like that, if you're working with, like, a data center or something like that where you know there's going to be big money attached, you're trying to serve your customers, all of your customers, right about what the market looks like, you know how do you approach designing workable financial products specifically for an underserved market.

Shawna Cuan: 23:20

Yeah, and it's a great question, ian, because you touch on some of the challenges right. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes trust building, it takes authentic partners that want to be there for the long term. And, to your point, that's not necessarily profitable from a near-term perspective, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. What's so valuable about the kind of work we're focused on is it's really mission-oriented and mission-aligned, so we're always going to be here to serve those communities. That's why we exist in the first place, and you know, cdfis share that with us and that's what makes it such a compelling partnership between us and CDFIs.

Shawna Cuan: 23:56

And I would say that the markets that we have in Ut ah that have been under surge are actually pretty similar to what you see around the country. We have aging housing infrastructure right, so we have people who desperately need upgrade and maintenance to their homes. That hasn't happened perhaps in decades. In some cases we have folks that are paying really high utility bills. Fortunately, utah, we're not as bad as some states and we have pretty low energy costs, but disproportionately, a lot of our communities are paying a high percentage of their income towards utility bills, and so the way that we're really trying to design products that work for those markets is understanding where those pain points exist and where the gaps in financing currently exist. And some of the gaps in current financing that's available is it can be very traditional, it can be a credit score, it can be credit histories, and that can often exclude homeowners, households, families, just because of something that went poorly maybe a couple of years ago or something that was a little bit out of their control. And so we've been spending a lot of time thinking about how can we tackle that issue here in Utah.

Shawna Cuan: 25:02

And actually it goes to your earlier question, ian, about partnerships and specifically partnerships between green banks like us and CDFIs. And we're actually working with a CDFI and they have a home retrofit program called SELF that is specifically tailored to not use traditional financing criteria like a credit score. They actually look at the homeowner's ability to repay, and that was something that really worked for us, because we're like, yes, that's what we have an issue with and this is a way to fix the gap. So we're leveraging a partnership, they're bringing in capital that we can deploy here in Utah, we're adding some of our own capital into that program and we're able to serve a need in the long-term in Utah.

Shawna Cuan: 25:43

So it's really this very dynamic way of us being able to address our need and what's exciting, too, is that we can continue to evolve that product so, as we're developing a relationship with self and growing that and we're seeing where the needs are in Utah, for example, we have radon challenges. Ok, can we talk about how do we mitigate radon specifically in homes, whereas that may not be as relevant a concern in other communities? So it's really about being creative and a lot of partnerships, because there's a lot of demand and there's not enough capital. So we really need to pool as much of this as we can and find that alignment as much as possible.

Ian Perterer: 26:23

And Chris just sticking with the same theme and it actually is a natural next step in the conversation. You know the underserved communities are often hard to reach when it comes to enrolling them in energy or financing programs. You know as being a CDFI and this being an area of focus. What engagement strategies have you seen for green banks and community lenders and historically disadvantaged communities that have been successful in connecting people in these communities to these financial solutions?

Chris Kramer: 27:16

primarily to serve low-income communities, using financing as well as technical assistance as a tool, but not just in energy, in fact. Really, to be honest, although it's grown a lot, not primarily at first in energy and so all of that groundwork has now been done. It's never done, but it has been ongoing for about 30 years, and that's not even counting sort of non-CDFI mission-driven lenders before. And so I think when we think about outreach specifically around energy, one of the great reasons to partner with CDFIs is that they have spent now a lot of time and resources establishing those relationships, creating that kind of trust and also tuning up their underwriting strategies so that they know how to underwrite borrowers in low-income communities in ways that are both inclusive and prudent. And so I think when you think about coming to you know those types of lenders and those communities with energy projects, you know you're already kind of coming to them. You're coming to a space where a lot of that work has been done. Now what you can encounter sometimes is, you know, if you think about it, sometimes I think about this, and I don't know if Sean would agree with this, but as a little bit of a continuum or spectrum where kind of utilities are over on a little bit more on the energy side. Cv5s are a little bit more over on the lending side and green banks, where kind of utilities, are over on a little bit more on the energy side, cdfis are a little bit more over on the lending side and green banks are kind of in the middle.

Chris Kramer: 29:03

What can happen with the CDFIs sometimes is that they wonder, they're not quite sure whether they can treat energy the same way that they've treated these other types of investments, whether it's, you know, home lending, whether it's multifamily lending, small business, and, as Sean said earlier, you know, energy sometimes has its own mystique around it, in the same way that financing does. And so you may encounter lenders who think, oh, I don't know whether I can. You know, I've got 30 years under my belt of kind of lending to and partnering with low-income communities. But can I use those same strategies? Because maybe energy is different.

Chris Kramer: 29:33

And I think if you're an energy person coming to those communities, one of the most valuable things that you can do actually is to help demystify energy. You know, just in the same way, that I spend some of my time trying to demystify financing it's not actually as complicated as you might think, and et cetera. The same can be true of energy that, yes, this is basically, you know, let's just say, a building improvement project, and you've lent on building improvement projects all the time and, yes, absolutely, you can look at ability to pay in similar ways. Now it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take account of perhaps some cash flow effects of saving dollars on utility bills and things like that. But fundamentally, yes, you should continue to use the well-developed and prudent strategies that you have and, in fact, one of the reasons we're coming to you as energy people is because of all that work that you've done.

Ian Perterer: 30:23

Absolutely, and it reminds me of a comment that was made by Marvaline Jones in a couple of podcasts ago and we were talking about minority diverse suppliers and why utilities want to work with them and sort of their unique superpower. And I think it does harken back, you know, Chris, to something you were saying which is essentially, you know, a lot of times the energy companies that come in they find these things difficult because they just come in and expect to be able to start talking to the community with trust and that's just not what it is. You know the superpower of diverse suppliers and CDFIs is that they've been there a long time. You know these communities that are historically, you know they're used to people coming in, getting what they need and leaving. Know that these people are here to stay, they are part of the community, they're going to keep it in the community and I think that is such a powerful thing that people should not discount and really think about heavily when they're thinking about working with CDFIs and Green Pinks, as they've done all of this groundwork to gain that trust. So I did mention that, with all the policy changes and talking about how it is hitting the underserved communities that you do work with.

Ian Perterer: 31:40

How do you see the roles of your organization in the marketplace evolving, let's say, over the next five to 10 years? Let's just say, whatever the trajectory is today it kind of stays that course. What does that look like for you? And also, what are you hearing from your stakeholders on the ground? What are they telling you right now? Shawna, let's start with you.

Shawna Cuan: 32:03

Sure, and you know, understandably, like, what we're hearing on the ground from stakeholders is that uncertainty kind of sucks, Whether we're talking about large infrastructure projects or we're just talking about, like an HVAC replacement. It's hard when uncertainty is introduced into our community because you don't know, hey, is the utility rebate going to be available, are tax credits going to be available, or, you know, maybe this grant program is not going to go away, and so uncertainty can breed a lot of concern and people can slow down right, like that's another thing. We're hearing from stakeholders, some who can afford to, they're like, well, we're going to kind of wait and see what happens. And then others are sort of like, well, the window's closing, we're going to race ahead. So we're seeing a lot of those different kinds of dynamics playing out right now and of course it's concerning and of course my heart goes out to seeing, like, what's happening on in our communities on the ground, because there's a lot of frustration as well around this uncertainty and around a little bit of a lot of the disruption that's been happening.

Shawna Cuan: 33:08

And so where we're really seeing our role is actually something that we is. Why we wanted to do this in the first place is to continue to fill that gap, continue to flex, to be that need, and we very intentionally chose to be a nonprofit because that affords us some agility and flexibility in pivoting our financing and our products to where our market is right now we ultimately can say hey. If we need to add, if we need to adjust these terms because tax credits are a little bit unclear we have the authority and we have the ability to make those kinds of adjustments and be here in a way that perhaps that counterbalances some of the uncertainty. It's not perfect, it's not going to be perfect, but we really see our role as that gap filler and then we'll continue to fill that gap. As we are engaging with our communities, we're sharing what's the new thing that's needed, what's the new area that needs to be addressed, and that'll be how we continue to add value to our community.

Chris Kramer: 34:26

I mean honestly, I think that over time, over the next five years and 10 years, it's just affordability is just going to become more and more an urgent need to address. And you know, cdfis really are there and green banks really as kind of the front line of that, and GreenBanks really is kind of the front line of that. Now, we can't create magic, but we'll do everything we can to try to make projects feasible. And I think the other part that ties into that for me is that there's going to be a shift in the kinds of projects that need to be financed. In the kinds of projects that need to be financed. We will need to continue to do all of the weatherization and those kinds of things that we've been doing, but we're going to need to do more electrification and we're really going to need to do more resilience. That's just reality.

Chris Kramer: 35:07

And resilience is particularly tricky. And electrification also, because the returns look different than they do on traditional efficiency projects. And yet you know, in a broad sense, if you're not doing them, then you're really leaving people in the lurch. I, you know, based in Vermont, we've had serious flooding that really affected our communities over the last couple of years, and if you were at ESP National in Arizona and it was 90 in January and they were talking about the heat waves over the last few summers and the hundreds of people who you know didn't make it through the summer. I mean, those kinds of projects are no longer discretionary and so affordability is not a nice to have, it's a need to have, and that's why we're here and we have the resources we have. But we'll do everything we can.

Ian Perterer: 36:05

Yeah, there's so many pressures. I think there's the pressure of uncertainty mixed with the pressure of certainty in the climate challenges that we're going to face. But I think, if I could sum it up, just to borrow a word from you, Shawna and Ross, from Friends, that we're all just going to have to pivot. That's what it's going to be. We're just going to have to be able to pivot and pivot fast. So, even with all this stuff that's going on kind of want to end this on a hopeful note what keeps you optimistic about the future of the industry?

Ian Perterer: 36:37

I think, for me, taking away from this conversation, what I'm really hearing and what makes me optimistic, is that, yes, the underserved communities are really feeling the pressure right now, especially with all of the uncertainty that's happening in the financing arena right now, but that we have these resources CDFIs and Greenbanks that are out there that can step in, pivot and help be a reliable resource to turn to in these times of uncertainty. And so I think it's to me that gives me hope that we're not stranded out in the middle of the ocean with no paddles. It's, we're not. We're not stranded out in the middle of the ocean with no paddles. We've got we've got some options that we can turn to, but, chris, like let's start with you. What, what are you optimistic about?

Chris Kramer: 37:23

I just think, and I'll I'll, you know, stick with the CDFIs here for just a second. The CDFI industry, you know I'm I started there but I've been an independent consultant for a while and every time I come back to a group of CDFIs it's just so reinvigorating. I'll give a shout out to the organization Inclusive the word, but without the E at the end and their organization of CDFI credit unions. And they went to their national conference earlier this year. Earlier this year, and you know, even with all the challenges that are going on kind of nationally right now, all of the attendees, really to a person, were just so dedicated to figuring this out and, you know, kind of recommitting to doing what they could for their communities.

Chris Kramer: 38:12

And it was just so heartening to see that because, honestly, I didn't know what I was going to find. I sort of thought, well, you know, given how challenging things are, you know, maybe people are throwing up their hands, and it really didn't feel like that at all. It felt like, okay, we're used to this. We've spent decades working in low-income and underserved communities. You know, challenge isn't new to us. And so here's the next thing and how do we keep moving? And that really helped renew my optimism.

Shawna Cuan: 38:43

I love that so much, chris, and honestly, that is something that I share with my Green Bank colleagues and my peers I mean, you know, across other states. It doesn't really matter what your you know priorities are. We are all driven towards trying to help improve quality of life right and make better lives for the people that we call part of our community, part of our home, our neighbors. All of that, and you know what kind of keeps me excited at the really really big scale is still seeing all these really large market dynamics occurring right, like we really can't deny that baseload clean energy renewables are at cost parity. We can't deny there's growing demand for electrification. There's just simply forces that are moving us forward. There will be obstacles, there will be roadblocks, but it is still moving forward regardless. And that gives me that sort of high level excitement.

Shawna Cuan: 39:36

And then at the sort of really personal excitement for me is we've been increasingly like connecting with folks across the space right, we have partners and communities in a lot of different ways, and what I've been incredibly touched by and shocked by, honestly, is how many people just said how can I help? What you're doing is really exciting. I want to see it be successful. What can I do to help? And we've had a number of people volunteer their time, their expertise, ideas just to help advance this mission, because it's clearly resonant with so many people within our communities and that just gives me so much fuel for continuing this forward, because it can get challenging, it can get really hard, but at the same time I take a step back and I'm like, oh my god, there's there's all this support, there's all this enthusiasm and camaraderie for what we're doing and there's a lot of momentum, and so that that really kind of keeps me optimistic and that's really for me, like what the excitement optimism comes for for me.

Ian Perterer: 40:37

Absolutely, and that's the power of community. Well, it is certainly an interesting time to be working in clean energy and especially the lending space, so I want to thank you so much, Shawna and Chris, for joining us today and for helping our listeners better understand some of the key issues that are impacting climate finance, and also diving into the world of CDFIs and green banks. I think we all learned a lot here today. You helped demystify a lot of things for me, and you're both doing great work, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the climate finance landscape continues to evolve For our listeners. If you're interested in learning more, check out our show notes. We'll have links to the resources mentioned during our conversation. And that's it for this episode. We'll see you next time on the Energy Beat podcast, and thank you so much, chris and Shawna. Thank you.

Shawna Cuan: 41:22

Thank you.