eeBuildings: EPA’s International Energy-Efficient Buildings Program

Gary McNeil, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Steve Bagley and Rebecca Greenberg, ICF Consulting

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Abstract

This paper profiles efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assist building owners and managers in developing countries to improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings. These efforts draw primarily on domestic experience EPA has gained in working with energy efficiency through commercial building voluntary programs. The work has been carried out by the International Capacity Building Branch (ICBB) of the Office of Atmospheric Programs (OAP) at EPA, whose mission is to help protect the global atmosphere by working to provide key developing countries with basic tools to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

As part of its international efforts, the ICBB created the International Energy-Efficient Buildings Program, known as eeBuildings. The eeBuildings program draws its approach primarily from EPA’s domestic experience with the ENERGY STAR® Buildings and Green Lights voluntary programs. Specifically, eeBuildings matches the assets of these programs to the particular needs and barriers of its fieldwork market. This approach is based on several years of experience in developing country markets, which indicated that it could achieve effective results. This paper offers numerous lessons learned and observations based on this experience.

The eeBuildings program is built on fieldwork supported by a newly developed website that provides access to the national building benchmarking tool and other useful information and networking opportunities. Currently, the eeBuildings program is active in Brazil, China and the Philippines. Based on the progress of the program thus far, the authors believe that it is a valuable effort to be continued and developed further.