Eden’s Sustainability and Asset Management Teams Power a New Era of Energy Efficiency
August 28, 2026
As Eden Housing continues to expand its leadership in sustainable affordable housing, Anish Tilak has stepped into the role of Associate Director of Performance and Sustainability, succeeding longtime champion Tom White following his retirement. He works closely with Bryan Dove, Senior Director of Asset Management, to maximize energy efficiency, improve resident comfort and reduce utility costs across Eden’s portfolio.
Prior to Eden, Tilak was at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a think tank where he worked on the carbon-free buildings team helping clients like Eden decarbonize and electrify their buildings, expand renewable energy and improve energy efficiency.
Previously he was an architect and sustainability consultant in the Bay Area, focusing on sustainable, high-performance buildings. “While I enjoyed the policy work at RMI, joining Eden was appealing because I was eager to return to the implementation side and work in a more hands-on capacity on projects where I knew I could make a difference,” Tilak said. “In addition, I was particularly excited about affordable housing decarbonization, having done similar work with RMI.”
Turning vision into action
At Eden, Tilak, Dove and their teams are working on a number of energy retrofits for existing buildings, leveraging state and utility incentive programs that help fund projects to electrify heating and hot water systems.
Energy use trackers identify properties that need updating, and the Eden team then replaces aging equipment with systems that can be up to 60% more efficient. In addition, Eden is currently focused on increasing its solar footprint, with 10 projects in the works to add rooftop solar, which will significantly cut tenants’ and Eden’s utility bills, sometimes by more than half.
The ultimate goal, of course, is to lower long-term operating costs for Eden and reduce utility bills for residents by transitioning to cleaner, more efficient appliances and offsetting the energy to use those appliances with renewable energy sources.
Leading the way in affordable housing decarbonization
By continuously identifying properties that would benefit from these upgrades, Eden is taking an intentional approach to building its pipeline.
“We are creating a roadmap to electrifying over time, which is unique among affordable housing developers,” Tilak and Dove explained. “Because we have a dedicated four-person sustainability team, we have the internal expertise and capacity to proactively pursue these projects, something many affordable housing organizations don’t have the resources to do.”
Eden is constantly communicating with innovators in the space to implement cutting-edge technologies, while using creative funding approaches that include stacking state- and utility-funded incentives. One recently completed electrification pilot project at Eden Palms uses load-shifting technology, Harvest Thermal, that turns a building’s hot water tank into a thermal battery, charging when electricity rates are low and drawing on that stored energy during peak pricing periods. The technology was installed in six residential units at Eden Palms and reduced energy bills by approximately 20% during the winter, when residents needed heating capacity the most.
Eden recently conducted a tour of our Eden Palms community in San Jose with high-profile commissioners from the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission to showcase this development and is exploring additional opportunities to incorporate load-shifting technologies into future electrification projects.
“A significant part of what Eden does is preserving and improving the housing that already exists, in addition to building new communities,” Dove says. “Since our existing housing stock will be with us for decades to come, one of the best things we can do is make those buildings as efficient, cost-effective and resilient as possible.”