BEA | ICLEI Africa

BEA

Building Efficiency Accelerator

We accelerate the implementation of building efficiency policies and programs across cities in the Global South in order to translate global expertise into action in cities.

Buildings are responsible for one-third of global energy demand and one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. Global building energy demand can be reduced by one-third by 2050 if known energy efficiency best-practices are implemented on a large scale across regions. The major barriers to efficient buildings are institutional and behavioral rather than technical or financial.

The BEA is a public-private collaboration that aims to break down these barriers by increasing global and cross-sector collaboration. To this end, the BEA supports public commitments at the city, regional and national levels. The BEA collaborative network is led by World Resource Institute, with ICLEI Africa supporting local and regional governments.

ICLEI Africa is the BEA Regional Lead for Africa and is responsible for encouraging participation, facilitate peer-to-peer learning, as well as co-ordinate regional meetings and events. ICLEI AS furthermore has a partnership agreement with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) to promote green building principles and practices within local governments.

Visit the project website

Project Location

Project Duration

Since 2016

BEA brochure

Download brochure

Project Highlights

The African Regional Network hosts knowledge sharing webinars every two months. The latest webinar looked at the National Green Building Policy of Rwanda and an innovative clay brick being used in affordable housing in Rwanda to promote increased climate resilience.
The City of Tshwane is the only deep dive city in Africa and is working to develop green retrofitting guidelines for their municipal portfolio with ICLEI Africa and the GBCSA.
The City of Tshwane has established both internal and external stakeholder groups to enable increased coordination for the implementation of green buildings. The BEA programme is partnering with C40 in the City of Tshwane to support these engagements.
The City of uMhlathuze Municipality, South Africa is the newest member of the BEA Network.
At Sustainability Week 2019, BEA hosted a workshop for action planning to Net Zero Carbon Buildings in the City of Tshwane
KwaDukuza Local Municipality is working towards embedding green building guidelines into the municipals Building Control and Land-Use Management applications.

Project aims

Designed to complement existing city network efforts, the BEA global partnership:

Provides tools, expertise and technical capabilities to local and regional governments matched to city priorities.
Provides a venue for engagement with private sector partners.
Assesses and prioritises locally-appropriate building efficiency policies and actions.
Tracks action and documents progress, and shares lessons learned.
Engages with cities based on the needs of the city and the activities that the partnership can provide in each location.

ICLEI Africa encourages local governments to implement the following actions to accelerate building efficiency: