This week, representatives from 18 Latin American cities will meet to discuss strategies to accelerate city scale action on green buildings from energy efficiency to net zero carbon buildings.

On Wednesday 28 August 2019, the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), The Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and C40 cities will host a BEA Regional Workshop in Bogotá, Colombia.

The BEA is a public private initiative of 45 cities and states, and more than 40 companies and organisations from around the world, that take action to improve energy efficiency in buildings and align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Participants will learn from international experts and city peers about energy efficiency in buildings by identifying actions, replicable models and implementation strategies for structuring public policies at a city scale. Additionally, the workshop will help understanding the critical importance and active role of buildings to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement: by pushing ambition towards a future of net zero carbon buildings as a common vision for cities.

Through dialogue and multisectoral collaboration, where municipal authorities from different countries of the region, private sector, international organizations and global experts, cities will gain insights and tools to build goals and their own roadmaps towards net zero carbon future.

The workshop will be divided into four sessions followed by interactive discussions leading to actions that cities can take to implement transformation locally with the support of programmes such as BEA.

The modules will cover the following:

• Developing a path to zero carbon buildings in cities is desirable, achievable and urgent
• Mandatory policy and code updates to raise performance in new buildings
• Raising performance in existing buildings through programmes for private and municipal buildings
• Developing partnerships with the private sector and civil society to achieve building efficiency and clean energy goals

Specifically, this workshop will allow participants to:

• Find out about city policies and codes, and ways to accelerate initiatives and goals for energy efficiency in buildings in Latin America through peer learning across regional professionals, experts and partners
• Understand and redefine the role of buildings towards a net zero carbon future for cities
• Engage with Latin American cities on the challenges and opportunities of different approaches and best practices to develop energy efficiency policies and projects
• Identify future opportunities to support the energy performance of buildings through strategic alliances with Green Building Councils (GBC) in each country, the Americas Regional Network of WorldGBC, C40 Cities and the World Resources Institute, among other BEA partners.

The following cities will participate:

1. Santiago, Chile
2. Guadalajara, Mexico
3. Mexico City, Mexico
4. Yucatan State, Mexico
5. Buenos Aires, Argentina
6. Quito, Ecuador
7. Lima, Peru
8. Bogotá, Colombia
9. Medellín, Colombia
10. Cali, Colombia
11. Montería, Colombia
12. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
13. São Paulo, Brazil
14. Fortaleza, Brazil
15. Recife, Brazil
16. Curitiba, Brazil
17. San Salvador, El Salvador
18. Belen, Costa Rica

This is the second BEA workshop to be held in Latin America this year. The first workshop was held in May 2019 in San José, Costa Rica alongside GBC Costa Rica’s CICS 2019.

For more information, contact Juanita Alvarez, Head of WorldGBC’s Americas Regional Network at jalvarez@worldgbc.org