Nuveen Green Capital – Chinmaya H M – 2024

SummaryChinmaya H M streamlined the validation of impact assessments for Nuveen Green Capital’s portfolio.GoalsNuveen Green Capital(NGC), a pioneer and leader in C-PACE financing for energy efficiency in commercial real estate, hosted 2024 EDF Climate Corps Fellow Chinmaya H M, Masters of Environmental Management student at Yale University. His fellowship involved validating and backfilling energy efficiency impact assessments for NGC’s 2022 projects. This project aimed to streamline and enhance the validation process of impact assessments for energy efficiency projects in commercial real estate.SolutionsChinmaya focused on validation and backfilling for projects closed in 2022, as these were significant in NGC’s portfolio in terms of net proceeds and the number of projects. To streamline the process, he created a dynamic Excel dashboard to help validate, summarize, and analyze the impact data. Given the variability and availability of C-PACE policies across the country, Chinmaya conducted an analysis of data availability by state and identified the next steps to improve data availability. His experience validating projects from 2022 informed his insightful recommendations on how to approach preparing historical data for future projects. Finally, he illustrated the changes and documented his tacit information as a standard operating procedure (SOP) to track and highlight best practices.Potential ImpactThis project enables Nuveen Green Capital (NGC) to quickly and accurately assess the impact of its C-PACE investments, allowing it to effectively respond to its investors. They can also use this information to reduce the cost of capital. As C-PACE continues to evolve, NGC would be in a leading position to promote best practices in regulation and administration across different states.