Activities

While climate change is a global issue, we believe that solutions for reducing building energy use are fundamentally local. They must be relevant and adapted to each region’s social, economic and legislative context as well as climate zone. Evidently the challenges and issues related to the use of energy in buildings are significantly different. For instance, in Europe and in the U.S, the emphasis is put on existing buildings and deep retrofitting, whereas in China and in India, the focus is on new construction.

Our network identifies strategies and technical priorities adapted to each of these regions that can decarbonise the buildings sector by 2030. Our current strategic focus is India and South East Asia.

Over the next 4 decades building floor area is projected to grow by 280 billion m2 (over 3 trillion sq.ft). After demolition rates are factored in this equates to adding an average of 6.5 billion m2 (70 billion sq.ft) of new floor area annually – equivalent to constructing the entire building stock of Japan every year from now until 2060 (IEA, 2017). The majority of this growth in new floor area will occur in non-OECD Asia (India and S.E. Asia) and China, where GBPN has well established expert networks and partners.

Our aim is to provide in each region tailored expertise, knowledge and analysis to decision-makers and key stakeholders, while also monitoring the evolution and impact of regional policy processes. 

Our current work is to directly support work on residential energy codes in Indonesia and India and develop capability of policy makers across South East Asia to implement them.

In the previous years, GBPN activities covered the four regions responsible for about 65% of the world’s GHG mitigation potential from energy savings in buildings: China, Europe, India and the United States. Starting 2019, GBPN is focusing on India and South East Asia, and sharing policy know-how and impacts through our global network of experts and knowledge exchange platforms.