Mexico Archives | Building Efficiency Accelerator

BEA Welcomes 13 New Jurisdictions, Reaching Over 50 Global Members

Tatsatom — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:56:18 +0000

Over the past 8 months, 13 new subnational jurisdictions have joined the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA), bringing the total cohort to over 50 jurisdictions. The majority of new members are in Latin America, with 3 located in Brazil alone. We look forward to working with the following new cities and states:

Betim, Brazil
Cali, Colombia
Curridabat, Costa Rica
Fortaleza, Brazil
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Kochi, India
Monteria, Colombia
Nuevo León, Mexico
Recife, Brazil
San Salvador, El Salvador
Santa Ana, Costa Rica
uMhlathuze, South Africa
Yucatán, Mexico

We also welcome the expertise of our new organizational partner Rockwool. The BEA is actively recruiting new partners. Cities and other subnational jurisdictions interested in joining the BEA can email us directly at [email protected] for more information.

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BEA Welcomes New Technical Partners and Cities

BEA — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:31:13 +0000

Over the next 2 years, we look forward to working with 6 new subnational jurisdictions: Belén, Costa Rica; Campeche, Mexico; Comayagua, Honduras; Msunduzi Municipality, South Africa; Nagpur, India; and Shanghai Changning District, China. We also welcome the expertise of new global organizational partners Alliance for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Programme for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, and Buildings 2030. The BEA is actively recruiting new partners. Cities interested in joining the BEA can email us directly at [email protected] for more information.

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P4G Funds World GBC to Lead BEA Expansion in Mexico & Colombia

BEA — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:31:03 +0000

The World Green Building Council will lead a BEA scale-up in the Americas through a new project funded by P4G. The $600,000 award will focus on increased support to existing and new BEA cities in Mexico and Colombia, and will increase engagement with growing markets in other Latin American countries. Learn more.

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Improving Buildings and Lives Across Latin America – with Women as Leaders

BEA — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 16:29:50 +0000

World GBC’s Juanita Alvarez writes about the role of women in the green building movement underway in Latin America – highlighting the collaboration and diversity of the BEA in particular. Read the full story here.

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RELEASE: Sonora State Kicks Off Efficiency Efforts With Support From Building Efficiency Accelerator

Eric Mackres — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 21:19:38 +0000

SONORA, Mexico (December 4, 2018) — Today, Sonora State announced a new collaboration with the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA), a public-private collaboration that turns global expertise into action to accelerate local government implementation of building efficiency policies and programs. Read the full story here.

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BEA City Progress

Tatsatom — Fri, 24 Nov 2017 20:21:18 +0000

Every quarter, BEA cities report progress towards their building efficiency policy and project goals. View the summary table showing what stage each BEA city is in now, or read more detailed updates from all 29 BEA cities.

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How to Attract Private Investment to Energy-Efficient Buildings? Follow the 5 “S’s”

Eric Mackres — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 14:29:42 +0000

Good public policies can complement and drive private investment to building efficiency. In the buildings sector, we hear at least five ways: Stability, Scale, Standardization, Segmentation and Sequencing. Read more here.

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BEA at the SEforALL Forum

Debbie Weyl — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 02:02:24 +0000

The Sustainable Energy for All Forum is a landmark gathering that celebrates the global sustainable energy movement.

Over 1,000 high-level representatives from government, business, civil society and international organizations gathered in New York City from April 3-5, 2017 for the 3^rd Sustainable Energy for All Forum – its theme “Going Further, Faster – Together.”

The Building Efficiency Accelerator was well-represented at the event: Nine BEA cities and 18 BEA partner organizations were present, totaling nearly 50 people. The BEA had a packed agenda over the three days, including leading a session with cities and finance experts on financing urban building efficiency and conducting a training on how cities can get their building efficiency priorities funded. Additionally, cities provided updates and feedback on BEA progress. Please contact us for any additional information about any portion of the agenda from the BEA events around the SEforALL Forum.

The following cities and organizations attended BEA events at the SEforALL Forum:

Cities:

Belgrade, Serbia
Bogotá, Colombia
Eskişehir, Turkey
Mérida, Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico
Rajkot, India
Santa Rosa, Philippines
Tshwane, South Africa
Warsaw, Poland

Organizations:

Alliance to Save Energy
C40 Cities
Carbon Trust
Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (C2E2)
Danfoss
Global Environment Facility (GEF)
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
International Energy Agency (IEA)
International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Investor Confidence Project
Johnson Controls
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Philips
Tecnalia
UN Environment
United Nations Foundation
US Green Building Council (USGBC)
World Resources Institute

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The BEA Partnership is Expanding

Debbie Weyl — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 17:38:18 +0000

It’s official: the BEA now has 26 partner cities and jurisdictions. A big welcome to Mérida, Mexico; Kisii County, Kenya; and Nairobi, Kenya, our three newest additions. We look forward to supporting you in convening local partners and planning and implementing your building efficiency actions.

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How Mexico City Can Unlock Finance for Retrofitting Public Buildings

BEA — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 15:49:04 +0000

When it comes to improving energy efficiency in buildings, cities can lead by example to create a big impact. By retrofitting public buildings, cities can demonstrate the benefits of action on energy efficiency and inspire change from within the private sector. However, this will require new policies, technologies and financial investments, as replacing inefficient technology with more efficient options requires additional budgeting or external financing—even if the technology can pay for itself over time.

The most common channel for financing retrofits of publicly owned buildings is internal budgeting. However, this is often a challenge, as many retrofits have a long pay-back period and many cities only have the legal authority to budget for one year. Additionally, city agencies may find that, as a result of lower energy bills in one year, their budgets are lowered in subsequent years. If internal budgeting is not a viable option, cities may seek external resources to finance their building efficiency projects. However, the market for energy efficiency retrofits is often not mature enough to attract the level of investment needed.

On August 6^th, nearly 100 participants with both international and domestic backgrounds gathered in Mexico City to explore options for overcoming these financial barriers to implementing energy retrofits in Mexico City’s municipal buildings. From internal strategies to public policy, these innovative solutions have the potential to make Mexico City’s buildings leaders in energy efficiency.

Adapting Existing Budgeting and Financing Options for Municipal Retrofits

Agencies in Mexico City should consider utilizing existing legal and financial mechanisms to invest in energy efficiency retrofits. For example:

Agencies may be able to establish contracts with terms exceeding one year, which would facilitate multi-year agreements with energy services companies.
Mexico City should explore the potential for public-private partnerships. In such a partnership, government agencies would maintain ownership of the building, but the operation of the building, including energy efficiency retrofits and energy management, is transferred to a private sector operator who would receive compensation.
Existing funds, such as Mexico’s national infrastructure fund FONADIN, may be potential sources for financing energy efficiency. FONADIN’s purpose is to support projects that generate public benefits but are not attractive enough for the private sector to support.

Mobilizing External Sources of Funding

Municipal governments should also focus on making projects more financially attractive to investors. Two potential ways to accomplish this are:

Support the development of an energy services market for both municipal and private buildings. While the energy services company (ESCO) model has successfully catalyzed energy efficiency investments in markets such as China and the United States—where energy savings are used as collateral to finance retrofits—the model has not yet matured in Mexico. This is partially due to uncertainty around repayment, which poses a risk to financial institutions. More third party auditors are needed in Mexico to conduct credible assessments of energy savings so that cities and building owners have accurate, reliable information about how much energy has been saved. Fortunately, efforts are underway to train and certify more auditors in Mexico. In addition, standardizing the documents needed for projects and bundling projects will better enable financial decision makers to assess them.
Explore the creation of an energy efficiency trust fund, drawing on current trust funds in Mexico for examples. Such a trust fund could aggregate multiple energy efficiency projects, reducing overall risk and transaction cost, consequently making projects more attractive to external investors. This could also be used to address the budgeting challenge, in that the fund could allow the government to set aside and “recycle” the savings from efficiency projects into new investments, rather than having the cost savings reduce future budgets.

While overcoming these barriers will be challenging, examples of innovation and leadership in the energy efficiency space abound in Mexico. For example, Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal’s EcoCasa program, as well as INFONAVIT’s green mortgage, are enabling the construction and retrofit of thousands of energy efficient homes in Mexico. Further, the Inter-American Development Bank has recently announced a new green bond program to finance Mexican ESCOs. Demonstrating its commitment to boosting investment in energy efficiency, the Mexican government is co-chairing the G20’s International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation. Financing efficiency is a global challenge, but Mexico City is continuing to move the dialogue forward.

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