Mexico City, Mexico was the BEA’s first deep engagement. Through the city’s Climate Change Fund, the local government has worked with the BEA to carry out eight building retrofits and 15 building energy audits since 2017. The city is now building on the success of their retrofit project by setting improvement targets across their buildings portfolio and launching a private sector Building Energy Efficiency Challenge. By celebrating small wins, the city has built the technical background, experience and leadership to expand their efforts and impact.

WRI Mexico and the Ministry of Environment of Mexico City (SEDEMA) launched the Mexico City Buildings Challenge in early 2020 to be closed in the summer of 2021, with support from the National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy (Conuee) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The Challenge will achieve 10% savings in the energy consumption of each registered building within one year. The objective is to promote the implementation of energy efficiency measures in existing buildings, both public and private, in Mexico City.

Focus Areas:

Commitments to the Building Efficiency Accelerator:

Policy

  • In the second phase of the BEA, Mexico City set ambitious policy targets, including the adoption of the bylaws for NOM 008 and NOM 020 for the thermal envelope of buildings and NADF-008-AMBT-2017 for solar water heating systems
  • Additionally, the city analyzed the energy efficiency potential of the technical complementary norms in the National Code on Energy Conservation for Mexico’s Buildings, to be adopted into the local legislation

Pilot Program

  • In the second phase of the BEA, Mexico City implemented a building improvement and retrofit program to improve all public buildings in need. This began with energy audits of 10 public buildings and retrofits of five buildings
  • Mexico City and the WRI Mexico BEA team also focused on capacity building for energy managers in public buildings, and on the development of data analysis on buildings, energy audits and monitoring for public building retrofits.

Lead Partners:

WRI Mexico