COLOMBIA AND MEXICO SET TO BOOST GREEN BUILDINGS WITH P4G AWARD FOR CITIES ACTION PROJECT SUPPORTED BY THE BUILDING EFFICIENCY ACCELERATOR

About

10/20/2018

Contacts:

P4G: Frank Walter, frank.walter@p4gpartnerships.org

WorldGBC: Juanita Alvarez, jalvarez@worldgbc.org

COLOMBIA AND MEXICO SET TO BOOST GREEN BUILDINGS WITH P4G AWARD FOR CITIES ACTION PROJECT SUPPORTED BY THE BUILDING EFFICIENCY ACCELERATOR

COPENHAGEN (October 20, 2018) — Buildings in Colombia and Mexico may get a green makeover thanks to expanded support for energy efficiency programs after winning a $600,000 award that transitions buildings at scale to save energy and prepare cities for a net zero future announced today at the Copenhagen P4G Summit.

This partnership between P4G and the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) focuses on equipping Green Building Councils (GBCs) to deliver transformational change in building efficiency city policies and action. One of the ways that GBCs are currently doing this is within the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) partnership.

“As nearly a third of the world’s energy goes to heat, light and cool buildings, reducing energy use can save money while also supporting global carbon reductions,” said Ian de Cruz, global director of Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G), the initiative that is providing the additional funding and support to the Cities Climate Action Project supported by the Building Efficiency Accelerator partnership.

The Cities Climate Action Project supported by the Building Energy Efficiency Accelerator is one of six partnerships selected by P4G to receive scale-up funding. Overall, P4G selected 24 partnerships to fund and support in 2018 following a global competition that attracted 450 submissions from 80 countries.

“As one of the key elements of our regional Cities Climate Action Project, the Building Efficiency Accelerator is a proven framework through which the public, private and NGO sectors can partner to deliver energy efficiency in buildings at scale,” said Terri Wills, CEO of the World Green Building Council. “This is why it is one of the partnerships through which our GBCs can support their cities. We look forward to expanding our work with cities in Colombia and Mexico to support their energy efficiency policies and programs at the city level while gearing up others in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru and Panama by sharing valuable expertise gained from work in other cities.”

The Colombia GBC has been leveraging the BEA in Bogotá for two years and recently announced that the city has adopted a new policy for more energy-efficient construction that is expected to reduce energy and water use in new buildings by 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively, when fully implemented. The city also will integrate the energy and water saving goals of Colombia’s national building efficiency code into its master plan.  

Juan Camilo González, Advisor to the Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa said: “Bogota is making great strides to transform the building and construction of our city to be greener and more sustainable.  Our city strategy and policies will help mitigate the impact that our citizens and buildings have on the environment: to help us to guarantee sustainable environmental, social and economic development."

“Fragmentation of the building and construction sectors can make scaling energy efficiency best practices and innovation more complex than in other industries,” said Clay Nesler, Vice President, Global Sustainability and Industry Initiatives at Johnson Controls. “Partnerships and collaboration are therefore crucial to help buildings achieve their full potential for reducing carbon emissions, improving economic outcomes in cities, and improving health and wellbeing.”

Better building efficiency policies can result in 25-50 percent reductions in energy demand from both new and existing buildings, saving money and reducing pollution. Energy efficiency measures in the building sector could deliver 5.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions savings by 2050, according to WorldGBC. Most of the technologies needed to do so are already commercially available and many deliver positive financial returns within relatively short payback periods.

About P4G

P4G – Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 – is a new initiative with the ambition of becoming the world’s leading forum for developing concrete public-private partnerships at scale to deliver on the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement. The government of Denmark provides funding for P4G. Besides the partner countries, non-profit organizations such as the Global Green Growth Institute, C40 Cities, World Economic Forum, and the World Resources Institute (which hosts the P4G Global Hub) are also P4G partners.

About WorldGBC

The World Green Building Council is a global network of Green Building Councils that is transforming the places where we live, work, play, heal and learn. The goal is to help reduce the building and construction sector’s CO2 emissions by 84 gigatonnes and ensure all buildings have net zero emissions by 2050. We believe green buildings can and must be at the centre of our lives. Our changing climate means we must reshape the way we grow and build, enabling people to thrive both today and tomorrow. We take action – championing local and global leadership and empowering our community to drive change. Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts, and commit to green buildings for everyone, everywhere.  worldgbc.org

About the Building Efficiency Accelerator

The Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) is a partnership of businesses, NGOs and multilaterals assisting local governments to take action to improve their buildings. The BEA is coordinated by WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities and includes more than three dozen partners, including WorldGBC. The BEA is supported by Johnson Controls, Inc., and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Learn more at buildingefficiencyaccelerator.org.