Building upon last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act provides $1 billion to support jurisdictions seeking to adopt, update and improve the implementation of current energy codes. The International Code Council worked with policymakers to support the provided resources. These resources will help communities:

• Update their energy codes
• Support the development, verification, and use of low-carbon construction materials
• Encourage energy-efficient retrofits and distributed energy generation, including solar thermal and small-scale wind

More specifically, the new legislation provides resources to support communities seeking to update their building energy requirements to codes and standards adoptions that meet or exceed the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and 2021 IECC’s net zero appendices. The bill makes further historic investments in sustainable construction, including $350 million through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for work toward enhanced standardization for low-embodied carbon construction materials through environmental product declarations, as well as assistance for the manufacturing industry to more widely use and validate EPDs. Read more here.