Earlier this month, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley announced a proposal to direct $3 million toward creating Providence’s first green revolving fund. If approved, the money will sponsor energy efficiency improvements in City-owned buildings and reinvest saved electricity costs in additional projects.
Green revolving funds are self-sustaining financial pools that sustain sustainability and energy projects. The fund, which would be managed by the City’s Department of Sustainability, seeks to push Providence closer to its goal of making all municipal buildings carbon-neutral by 2040.
“What makes this initiative especially significant is that it’s one of the first of its kind at this level, pairing ambitious climate goals with a real, self-sustaining funding mechanism,” Aislinn Hanley, program director at Climate Jobs Rhode Island — a group dedicated to bringing about an equitable energy transition — wrote in an email to The Herald.
“This fund is a tool to ensure those goals are actually achieved,” she added. “It represents a bold shift from planning to action.” Hanley also stressed the importance of the fund for improving the city’s energy security and fortifying the local economy.
According to City Councilor Sue AnderBois (Ward 3), one of the ordinance’s co-sponsors, Providence is experiencing a “once in a generation volume” of new municipal and school building construction. Currently, buildings create up around 70% of Providence’s carbon footprint, according to the City of Providence.
According to spokesperson for the City of Providence Josh Estrella, the proposed building improvements require investment now, but they will “significantly reduce long-term energy expenses, protect the city from volatile fossil fuel prices and lower deferred maintenance costs over time, resulting in energy cost savings for the city and our taxpayers.”
He added that those incentives for energy efficiency — along with both state and solar incentives and renewable energy tax credits — will support the revolving fund going forward.
Rhode Island faces some of the highest residential electricity prices in the nation. In February, Gov. Dan McKee launched a review of certain state sustainability initiatives to reduce electricity costs, sparking criticism from some sustainability groups.
“With the attacks we are seeing federally on climate and clean energy from the Trump Administration and the attempted rollbacks to clean energy programs in our own Governor’s proposed budget, Providence is demonstrating that we will not back down from our commitments to commonsense measures to mitigate our carbon emissions,” AnderBois wrote.
She added that the city has seen “real savings” following the implementation of the Building Energy Reporting Ordinance and an ordinance requiring that all city-owned be carbon-neutral by 2040.
Since the latter ordinance was passed in 2024, over 60 buildings have experienced an energy-efficiency improvement project or audit, saving the city $3.2 million, according to Estrella. Energy consumption has also decreased by 7% in city buildings, he wrote.
AnderBois added that the ordinance includes requirements for the use of union labor for its energy-efficiency projects.
Hanley praised the ordinance’s “strong labor standards, which help guarantee fair wages, safe working conditions and access to these jobs for local workers.”
“This is how we create family-sustaining career pathways,” she wrote. The ordinance, she added, aims to distribute the benefits of the fund — including “improved building conditions, lower energy costs and job opportunities” — equitably across communities, with a special focus on underserved communities and those most affected by environmental degradation.
AnderBois emphasized that the project is part of continuous efforts to “ensure that Providence is implementing our Climate Justice Plan and doing all we can do to mitigate climate change.”
“We are demonstrating that it’s not whether we can afford to invest in clean energy — but that we can’t afford not to,” she added.
Kelly Ding is a senior staff writer for the community and culture beat. She is from College Station, TX and plans to concentrate in IAPA on the policy and governance track. In her free time, she loves to explore new coffee shops, curl up with a good book, and be a gym rat.
