Colombia. Camacol and the International Finance Corporation presented a program to certify national constructions in environmental material. Water and energy savings of 20% are sought.
By 2030, Colombia must have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. And by 2050, the national economy is expected to be neutral on these types of emissions. (Read: Construction sees the light: the sector projects 2.4% growth for 2017)
These are two of the most relevant goals that the country has in terms of the environment. Achieving them will depend, in large part, on how national production can be rearranged in several aspects, starting with housing construction and urban development, according to Luis Gilberto Murillo, Minister of the Environment.
The official spoke during the presentation of Edge, a program that seeks to certify new construction in the country on sustainability issues. The initiative is promoted by the Colombian Chamber of Construction (Camacol), in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank.
The standards proposed by Edge, which are already applied in 100 countries around the world, achieve reductions in water, energy and construction materials consumption that, in turn, end up representing savings for building users.
The goal of IFC and Camacol is that, by 2024, one in five buildings will be certified with Edge, for which they have to demonstrate, from the design stage, that there will be a saving of 20% in each of the fields mentioned. This calculation is made on the baseline of consumption that constructions have in the country.
"What we did first was to build a baseline to know where we were in energy and water consumption, on different floors terms and in different projects. It is not the same to make decisions for Bogotá than for Barranquilla or for the Pacific coast. From this line, the guidelines that were incorporated in Decree 1285 of 2015 and Resolution 549 of the same year were generated and here it was finally established how the regulations for energy consumption are. After this we are left thinking about how we do to facilitate the application of the standard, which is not optional. What is optional is certification. When IFC raised the possibility of being Edge's local partner, we found that it was the way to support builders in complying with the standard," says Sandra Forero, president of Camacol.
