Since winning a $600,000 USD grant in October 2018 from the international organisation Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G), the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) Americas Regional Network has taken the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) to more cities and countries in the Americas. New signatories for the program include Belen in Costa Rica, Guatemala City in Guatemala, the State of Campeche in Mexico, and Cali and Monteria in Colombia.

This partnership between P4G and the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) focuses on scaling up the Cities Climate Action Project. Supported by the BEA, the project equips 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 BEA partnership. The power of this partnership is that it creates a replicable framework through which the public, private and NGO sectors can collaborate to deliver energy efficiency in buildings at scale.

It is thanks to the local policy and technical expertise of the GBCs that city officials in different countries now recognise in the model of the GBCs the ideal partners to develop initiatives like the BEA, public-private collaboration that turns global expertise into action to accelerate local government implementation of building efficiency policies and programs.

For the past years, Colombia and Mexico have led the work around energy efficiency in buildings at a policy level, with cities and states working with the BEA to develop strategies for new and existing buildings, depending on the priority and need of each city or state. The case study for the city of Bogota has been the leading example across the 35 cities around the globe to succeed with the BEA, by developing with the deep dive support of Colombia GBC, CCCS, a policy that will demand 20% savings in energy and water for all new constructions. Nowadays, Bogota has around 2.3 million homes, and it is expected that by 2050 the number of homes will double, which means that with the new policy that will be launched in the next few weeks the policy will impact the new 50% of homes.

Through the WorldGBC Americas Regional network, we have promoted a platform of knowledge exchange, strategic partnerships, market intelligence and prioritisation of opportunities across the network. It has helped identify cities that are ready to engage with the program following the criteria of demonstrating a political will and for energy efficiency in buildings to be an institutional priority and by mapping the key stakeholders and local partners to deliver on the commitment.

Today WorldGBC, the World Resources Institute, and the Building Efficiency Accelerator will host the Americas WorldGBC Regional Workshop “Building Energy Efficiency and Net Zero Roadmaps for Cities” in San José, Costa Rica hosted by GBC Costa Rica.

The workshop aims to create a space for dialogue and multi-sectoral work where municipal authorities from different countries of the region, private sector representatives, international organisations and global experts on energy efficiency in buildings will identify actions, replicable models and strategies of implementation for structuring public policies on energy efficiency in buildings at a city scale.

Participants from more than twelve different cities and states across the region, including, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, will join ten Green Building Councils participating from Brazil, Chile, Peru, Panama, Argentina, Canada, and others. Also, counting with the active participation of C40 Cities, the World Resources Institute, and WRI Mexico, among other private sector representatives like Johnson Controls International, amongst others key leaders of the industry.

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

These modules will cover the following topics:

• Voluntary energy efficiency programs: Local government leadership and active private sector participation in demonstration projects and energy efficiency strategies in real estate portfolios
• Mandatory policies and codes for sustainable construction: Success stories from BEA cities in Mexico and Colombia
• Strategies and roadmaps for net zero carbon buildings: The road to net zero carbon buildings through public policies, multi-sectoral commitments and Climate Action Plans for cities.

Specifically, this workshop will allow participants to:

1. Meet regional peers, experts, and external partners to discuss solutions to accelerate initiatives and goals for energy efficiency in buildings in Latin America
2. Engage with Latin American cities on the challenges and opportunities of different approaches and best practices to develop energy efficiency policies and projects
3. Learn about opportunities to participate with the BEA, with success stories from Mexico City and Bogota
4. 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

For more information about the Cities Climate Action Project, click here.