SALT LAKE CITY — As Utahns contend with an unaffordable housing market coupled with rising energy costs, Utah Clean Energy has introduced a new Builder Toolkit designed to help address both challenges head on. The newly unveiled Toolkit is designed to help builders, developers, realtors, sales professionals, and homebuyers accelerate the uptake of low or zero emission homes. The result is more affordable homes with lower utility bills for Utah families.

“Low and zero emission homes provide triple benefits to the homeowners and the larger community. It helps families save money on energy bills while making smart use of our shared energy resources and improving local air quality by reducing pollution. What’s not to love?” states Kevin Emerson, the Director of Building Efficiency and Decarbonization at Utah Clean Energy.

The Builder Toolkit comes at a pivotal time for Utah. Utah’s population growth is fueling a building boom, while energy and housing costs continue to climb. Every year, thousands of new housing projects are built in Utah, and yet many families struggle with higher than necessary energy bills. The average household spends 3.5% of income on energy bills, and low-income families spend twice as much, making efficiency vital to housing affordability.

Available now at hub.utahcleanenergy.org/homebuilder-toolkit, this one-stop-shop website now provides a comprehensive guide for how to build low- and zero-emission homes to save residents money and make smart use of Utah’s shared energy resources.

Governor Cox’s goal of building 150,000 new homes by 2029 to address housing affordability represents another opportunity to leverage the Toolkit for community benefit. By Utah Clean Energy’s calculations, if all of the new homes under the Governor’s plan meet the energy efficiency standards outlined in the toolkit, Utah families could save nearly $5 billion in energy costs over 30 years.

Jim Meyers, Director of the Buildings Program at the regional energy efficiency group, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, said “energy-efficient construction isn’t just good for the environment, it’s one of the smartest, most cost-effective ways to address Utah’s housing affordability challenges.” Meyers continues “the Builder Toolkit empowers builders to deliver homes that reduce long-term energy costs for families while strengthening future energy reliability. This kind of resource helps ensure that the homes we’re building today won’t burden Utah families with higher utility bills tomorrow.”

Developed with core funding made possible by the State of Utah and overseen by the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, and with additional support from the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, the Toolkit was informed by the real-world experience of multiple Utah home builders, and is made up of nine sections including:

“The Toolkit was developed from lessons learned from local builders that have already built ultra efficient, all-electric homes. They have illustrated that building low and zero emission homes is doable. Our goal is to give builders and other residential real estate professionals the practical resources they need to deliver affordable, efficient homes that will benefit Utah families for generations,” states Emerson.