At ULI’s annual Asia Pacific Real Estate Summit in Shanghai, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and ULI announced a global partnership to advance investments related to energy conservation and carbon emission reduction in existing buildings in cities around the world.
The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a network of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. C40 was established in 2005 and expanded via a partnership in 2006 with President William J. Clinton’s Climate Initiative. The current chair of the C40 is New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
In partnership, the organizations will forge better connections between public sector officials and private building owners in C40 cities that are actively engaged in reducing the energy consumption and carbon emissions of buildings. C40 research has revealed that, on average, 45 percent of total citywide emissions are attributable to energy consumed in buildings, approximately two-thirds of which from private buildings. By supporting municipal officials to engage private property owners more effectively, the C40/ULI partnership will greatly affect the ability of cities to meet their energy conservation and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.
“Energy consumption in private buildings represents one of the single largest sectors of emissions in most C40 cities. Developing partnerships that support the efforts of city officials in C40 cities to better understand data challenges and engage with local energy consumers is vitally important to achieving the ultimate goal of lowering total emissions from this sector,” said Terri Wills, director, C40 Global Initiatives.
The partnership will specifically leverage the knowledge and networks represented by ULI and ULI’s Greenprint Center for Building Performance, a dedicated research initiative that provides real estate owners and investors with benchmarking tools to evaluate a building’s environmental performance, including energy consumption, carbon emissions, water usage and waste diversion. Between 2011 and 2012, buildings in the portfolios of Greenprint members showed a 4.4 percent reduction in energy use and an 8.2 percent reduction in carbon emissions.
“By leveraging the global networks of ULI with those of C40, we can advance the peer-to-peer learning that is necessary to build consensus for investments in better building performance,” said ULI Chief Executive Officer Patrick L. Phillips. “This partnership is an exciting opportunity to build on ULI’s work involving environmentally conscious and energy-efficient development.”
