C40 and Urban Land Institute sign global partnership

The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) today announced a global partnership to advance investments related to energy conservation and carbon emission reduction in existing buildings in cities around the world.

“Energy consumption in private buildings represents one of the single largest sectors of emissions in most C40 Cities,” said Terri Wills, Director, C40 Global Initiatives. “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.”

Signed today at ULI’s annual Asia-Pacific Real Estate Summit in Shanghai, the organisations aim to 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 per cent of total city-wide emissions are from energy consumed in buildings, approximately two-thirds of which come from private buildings. By supporting city officials to more effectively engage private property owners, the C40-ULI partnership will impact the ability of cities to meet their energy conservation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals.

The agreement 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 Patrick L. Phillips, CEO, ULI. “This partnership is an exciting opportunity to build on ULI’s work involving environmentally conscious and energy efficient development.”