The Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) is a private-public collaboration platform that aims to advance the implementation of building efficiency policies and practices. This is one of the energy efficiency accelerators under the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and is implemented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) through the World Resources Institute (WRI).

In Southeast Asia (SEA), WRI engaged ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability Southeast Asia Secretariat (ICLEI SEAS) to lead collaboration with BEA cities, namely, Da Nang, Vietnam; Iskandar, Malaysia; and Mandaluyong, Science City of Muñoz, Pasig, and Santa Rosa in the Philippines.

In line with this, GreenSolutions was tapped to serve as the technical consultant of ICLEI for the BEA cities of Santa Rosa, Mandaluyong, and the Science City of Muñoz. For nine months, we were able to accomplish various activities including walkthrough energy audits and stakeholder consultations, among others.

Energy auditing is an important tool that can help us identify possible energy conservation measures for various building types. In order to provide capacity building for the BEA cities, various members of the cities’ local government units (LGU) were invited to partake in our energy audit workshop. For the first part, we have introduced the concept of energy auditing, its different parts, as well as the step-by-step methodology on how to conduct one.



A walkthrough audit was then done in a sample building so the participants can get a better understanding and appreciation of the energy auditing process. Aside from checking typical energy hungry appliances such as air-conditioning units, building envelope components such as windows and walls were examined with tools such as thermal imaging cameras. In conducting an energy audit, it is essential to look into both the equipment loads inside and the building shell to better estimate energy consumption. Throughout the audit proper, we also conducted an interview with the building managers to understand the operation schedule of the site, which can also greatly influence building energy performance.

On the less technical side of things, we’ve also conducted stakeholder workshops that aim to springboard LGUs into developing their own green building ordinance. Different green building goals were presented to both public and private stakeholders and these would need to be ranked according to the stakeholders’ preferences. Other issues on incentives and implementation were also discussed in the workshop. Due to the recent COVID situation, we were also able to hold an online version of this workshop using polling tools and surveys in place of index cards.

The BEA project gave us the opportunity to work alongside various local governments in pursuing their goals towards improving building efficiency in their cities. Together with ICLEI, we were able to provide a better foundation for the LGUs to further develop their green building programs.

For more information on ICLEI and their work, check out their website at https://icleiseas.org/.