Media Contact:
John Lindsay
john@moxiestrategies.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 7, 2025
BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION CALLS FOR NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE APPROACH IN NEW YORK STATE ENERGY PLAN COMMENT
Top Industry Leaders join BDC in Calling for Improved Thermal Energy Networks Policies and Implementation
ALBANY, N.Y. – Today the Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) submitted its comment on the Draft New York State Energy Plan, a document that will inform policymaking for New York’s energy needs and priorities over the next fifteen years. In its comment, BDC applauds parts of the Plan but argues that New York needs a bolder approach to addressing its energy needs, through neighborhood-scale building decarbonization solutions, in order to meet New York’s Climate Law requirements to reduce emissions and decarbonize millions of buildings over the next twenty-five years.
“New York needs a paradigm shift in building decarbonization to upgrade entire neighborhoods so we can create affordability, advance projects, build the industry and supply chain and support thousands of union jobs,” said Allison Considine, NY Senior Campaign Manager for the Building Decarbonization Coalition. “This large-scale, systems-level strategy is critical for protecting New Yorkers from increasingly expensive gas bills and ensuring that the state can achieve its emissions targets. Decarbonizing through a building-by-building approach, alone, won’t be enough to meet our goals.”
By decarbonizing at a neighborhood scale, New York can strategically retire aging gas infrastructure and redirect billions of dollars away from fossil fuel systems into clean energy solutions. This approach will:
- Speed up decarbonization efforts by deploying solutions at scale, rather than piecemeal.
- Ensure equity by protecting low-income households, who are too often left behind in house-by-house approaches.
- Lower costs and support long-term energy affordability by leveraging economies of scale that make clean energy transitions more affordable for everyone, and reduce the risk of stranded gas system assets.
- Support thousands of union jobs across New York.
In collaboration with its partners, BDC and key stakeholders also filed additional joint comments on both thermal energy networks and on gas system transition.
The joint comment on TENs is signed by top industry associations, businesses and industry leaders and advocates, and represents broad support, coordination and alignment towards the development of a robust market and policies to scale thermal energy networks as a key building decarbonization strategy in New York.
In partnership with environmental, clean energy and environmental justice organizations in New York, the joint comment on gas system transition calls for additional interventions to support a planned, managed reduction in emissions from the gas system, and urges an increased focus on strategic, ambitious energy system planning to reduce the risk of stranded gas system assets, and to empower the Public Service Commission further to effectively enforce these planning processes.
BDC’s complete comment on the draft State Energy Plan is available here.
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ABOUT THE BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION
The Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) aligns critical stakeholders on a path to transform the nation’s buildings through clean energy, using policy, research, market development, and public engagement. The BDC and its members are charting the course to eliminate fossil fuels in buildings to improve people’s health, cut climate and air pollution, prioritize high-road jobs, and ensure that our communities are more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Learn more at www.buildingdecarb.org