Our Green Program Expands Affordable Housing and Helps the Environment
Affordable Housing: Our DNA
Freddie Mac’s commitment to affordable, quality rental housing is central to everything we do, including our research, the products, programs and services we offer, and much more. Our continuous support — in all economic conditions and in markets that might otherwise be neglected — distinguishes us from other funding sources. Driven by a genuine desire to effect change, we confront persistent housing challenges through innovative thinking, which led to our Green Program.
Aging Housing: A Challenge to Affordability and Sustainability
We understand the complexities that arise as housing ages. Over 77% of our nation’s rental units were constructed prior to 2000. As housing ages, utility expenses typically become more and more expensive for renters. This is especially true for those renters who are the backbone of our local communities: teachers, police officers, firefighters, and health care and service industry professionals.
In 2016, we launched our Green Advantage® program to take our support for affordable housing to a new level. Through Green Advantage, we enable borrowers to improve energy and water efficiencies in existing multifamily housing stock. This translates to utility savings for tenants, creating a win-win for workforce renters and the environment. In 2019, we introduced our first green bond issuances, which are specifically designed to target workforce housing where the need for efficiency improvements are the greatest. The K-G Deal — “K” for our flagship series of securities, “G” for green — is exclusively comprised of workforce housing loans that are financed through the Green Advantage program.
“In a way, every K-Deal® since 2016 has had some element of green due to the integration of the Green Advantage loans throughout our platform, since the creation of the program. The K-G Deal goes a step further, offering environmentally and socially conscious investors the opportunity to invest in bonds that support that mission.”
— Robert Koontz, Senior Vice President, Multifamily Capital Markets
The Green Bond Impact Report
We put together the Green Bond Impact Report to illustrate the environmental and social impact of green investing through these K-G green bonds. And we’ve released this podcast to dive deeper into some of the key report findings. Research shows that the quality and location of a home has a demonstrable impact on life outcomes. Green Advantage improvements make multifamily housing more energy- and water-efficient, which is core to our mission to build a better housing finance system.
To learn more about our Green Bond program, visit the following links: