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Appendix 4. Case Study: Mexico—Breaking Building Energy Efficiency Grounds with a National Low-Income Housing Program Introduction1 Mexico has had a mandatory standard for commercial buildings since 2001. Developed by CONUE, the national energy efficiency agency, this federal BEEC has not been enforced due to a lack of adoption by local government into their building construction regulations. States and municipalities that are in charge of setting construction rules for their territories have not made any efforts to include energy efficiency requirements in their building codes. The BEEC has thus not become effective. National energy efficiency standards for lighting and air conditioning units, for which the federal government does have means of enforcement, have been mandatory for more than 10 years. They are widely applied and fairly successful, saving more than 16,000 GWh, the equivalent of the power consumption of 10 million households in 2006 and resulting in almost 3000 MW of avoided power capacity, about 6 percent of installed capacity. More recently, the National Housing Agency CONAVI developed a voluntary national regulation for residential construction (CEV) that contains sustainability requirements, including thermal performance for the building envelope and electrical and water saving equipment. Developers wanting to participate in CONAVI’s subsidized low-income housing development program will have to satisfy those requirements. CONAVI has developed a CDM methodology based on its housing projects. The methodology was approved in 2009. The anticipated carbon credits are expected to provide some incremental cost financing for participating housing projects, as well as to support development of a monitoring and evaluation program. The recent efforts by CONAVI represent an attractive approach to leverage market uptake of more energy efficient buildings through federal low-income housing subsidies. This could effectively demonstrate to both the supply chain and consumers the real benefits of applying and acquiring energy and water saving technologies. CONAVI is also starting to support several states and municipalities to incorporate CEV requirements into their building regulations and enforce compliance. This could be the beginning of a wider application of energy efficiency requirements in the Mexican building sector.
Mexico’s Urban Population and Importance of the Building Sector Urban Construction Patterns and Trends Mexico is a very urbanized country, with about three quarters of its population of 104 million in 2005 living in urban areas. Although population growth is expected to slow down, urban growth pressures will not. Mexico City has seen an influx of 4.7 million people in the past 25 years. Large cities located along the U.S.–Mexico border, particularly on the Mexican side, have seen an even larger relative population increase. For example, Tijuana tripled its population between 1980 and 2005. The share of the urban population is forecast to reach 84 percent by 2030.