The Renewable Thermal Collaborative’s (RTC) membership includes industrial manufacturing companies, non-profits, institutions, and governments with footprints and thermal energy needs throughout the United States. Strategies to decarbonize industrial heat vary greatly from location to location, depending in part on the availability of policy support and tools from place to place.
Many policy programs include geographic eligibility criteria, prioritizing beneficiaries located within certain boundaries, or providing differing levels of support based on location. The Biden Administration’s Justice40 initiative requires that 40% of the support and funding from many government programs go towards communities negatively impacted by environmental and social factors.
This analysis outlines how many and which RTC Member facilities may be eligible for support from programs covered by the Justice40 initiative based on their location, mapping facilities across the United States, and how they intersect with commonly used geographic definitions of historic marginalization. This assessment illuminated the opportunity for the RTC to help connect Members with the policy supports available and simultaneously advance company sustainability goals, national emissions targets, and justice objectives.