Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado has a full-time population of just over 100,000 residents and serves as a regional employment center for more than 50,000 additional people working in a variety of academic, research, and business sectors. Boulder has long been a leader in climate action, making great strides over the last two decades, but the vast majority of its nearly 50,000 buildings continue to use gas for space and water heating. The city seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 and in the process, make its existing homes, businesses, and community buildings healthier, more efficient, and more climate-ready.
Boulder Programs, Policies, and Strategies
Boulder has been a trailblazer, developing policies and programs to equitably advance the efficiency and resilience of existing buildings while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2010, the city adopted SmartRegs, which requires rental properties to meet basic energy efficiency standards to receive a rental license. In 2015, Boulder adopted a Building Performance Ordinance, which requires commercial buildings to benchmark energy usage and complete cost-effective upgrades every ten years and one-time lighting upgrades. Combined, these programs have reduced the annual energy use of Boulder’s existing buildings by the equivalent of over 5,600 homes.
Boulder launched one of the nation's first building electrification campaigns in 2018, which resulted in a three-fold increase in heat pump installations within a few years. However, in assessing the program results, Boulder found that the majority of their rebates went to climate-conscious, single-family homeowners, indicating a need to broaden the appeal and accessibility of building electrification. Boulder began working with BEI in 2019 to design complementary programs to serve more diverse populations, informed by the concept of “Targeted Universalism.” BEI helped Boulder identify and assess inclusive financing options, ultimately focusing on utility-led tariffed on-bill financing as a promising option for low- and moderate-income customers and renters.
In late 2022, Boulder voters approved a new Climate Tax, which is estimated to generate $6.5 million per year for city-level climate work. With existing buildings responsible for producing nearly two-thirds of Boulder’s GHG emissions, Boulder began partnering with BEI on developing its next generation of building policies and strategies to accelerate equitable building electrification across the city. In 2025, Boulder released the Healthy Buildings, Stronger Community Roadmap. BEI supported the City in identifying neighborhoods for Boulder’s proposed neighborhood-scale electrification pilot and assessed the implications of the local utility’s obligation to serve policy. Additionally, BEI researched building electrification policy options that will be resilient to potential litigation, including building performance standards and appliance emissions standards, setting Boulder up to enact future ambitious policies that will continue its climate leadership.
Regional Programs and Strategies
In 2025, BEI advised Boulder, the City and County of Denver, and the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) on the implementation of Power Ahead Colorado, an initiative funded by a federalClimate Pollution Reduction Grant that invests close to $200 million in building electrification and decarbonization in the Denver metropolitan area. BEI helped DRCOG staff design a full-service Retrofit Navigator program for low-income disadvantaged communities (LIDAC) across the region that will provide free holistic home retrofit and upgrade services to at least 1,600 buildings by 2030.
BEI also supported DRCOG's regional building policy alignment efforts by conducting research on the costs, benefits, and equity impacts of building electrification policies, with a focus on protecting low-income and naturally occurring affordable housing. This work will inform DRCOG's Building Policy Collaborative, a peer-to-peer network of local government officials from across DRCOG’s 58 member jurisdictions. The Building Policy Collaborative will evaluate, align, and implement building policies across these jurisdictions to create regional consistency, ease in permitting, and compliance for trades and industry. The goal is to catalyze progress needed to reach a region-wide zero-emission built environment by 2050.
Through Boulder's long history of innovation and continued collaboration with regional agencies and partners, the City and its partners are creating a blueprint for equitable building decarbonization at scale along Colorado's Front Range region and beyond.