In summary: 

1. As a result of Colombia’s new green codes, buildings are expected to consume 10 to 45 percent less energy and water. These reductions will avoid nearly 190,000 metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2021, helping big cities like Bogota achieve a goal to reduce 2019’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 16 percent compared to 2007.2,3

Potential gains from improving energy efficiency are substantial — not only in terms of saving energy and combating climate change, but also in terms of contributing to an array of other co-benefits, including improving human health and creating jobs. We asked Tim Farrell, Senior Advisor at the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency, what works best when it comes to boosting energy efficiency. He stressed that targeted policy measures and sufficient resources to support implementation and compliance are among a number of critical ingredients for success.

USGBC local communities around the country are helping cities jumpstart their building performance benchmarking efforts. And the results are pretty exciting. After four years of benchmarking in New York City, buildings there are using almost 15 percent less energy according to MIT professor David Hsu, one of the most widely recognized experts in energy benchmarking analysis. Learn more in this Benchmarking in Cities brief.

To maximise the benefits from its application of BIM to infrastructure projects within its annual capital program, this framework will support the effective use of BIM across Queensland Government infrastructure delivery agencies. A focus of the framework includes BIM capability development across government and industry.

This article is part of our Urban Expeditions series, an initiative made possible by a grant from United Technologies to the National Geographic Society. As the world’s urban population expands, architects and planners are mapping out ways to make cities more sustainable. Cities produce a vast amount of emissions and waste, putting a strain on both human and ecological health. But our buildings themselves may hold a solution.

Light, reflective surfaces can have a dramatic impact in cooling the surrounding air – in cities, but in the countryside too. Whitewashed walls, arrays of photovoltaic cells, and stubble-filled fields can all provide local relief during the sweltering decades ahead. But policymakers beware. It doesn’t always work like that. There can be unintended consequences, both on temperature and other aspects of climate, like rainfall. Even local geoengineering needs to be handled with care.

New research finds that people are willing to pay more for energy efficient housing, making the case for a mandatory national rating system for existing homes. 

“Location, location, location” is a time-honoured mantra for pricing property, but research shows buyers and renters are also prepared to pay a premium for energy efficiency.

The earth is on a trajectory to warm 3-4°C by 2100. This heat map details how that rise in temperatures will affect major metropolitan hubs.

Smart Cities Dive took a closer look at how this would affect six major metropolitan hubs, and what the respective mayors and city leaders are doing to curb climate impacts as the clock ticks.

Energy transition of the EU building stock, from being an energy waster to being highly energy efficient and an energy producer, is a prerequisite for Europe’s carbon neutrality, as well as for meeting Europe’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving these targets requires shifting the emerging energy renovation market from a market of step-by-step and shallow energy renovation financed by grants to a market of industrialized and holistic energy renovation leading to zero energy buildings financed by long-term loans.