Efficient Cities Project

Responding to the growing demand from the public sector to increase its resource efficiency, the Efficient Cities Project was proposed, which is implemented by CBCS – Brazilian Council for Sustainable Construction – and financed by Instituto Clima e Sociedade, ICS.

THE FIRST PHASE of the Efficient Cities Project took place in 2018 with the aim of working with municipal governments to promote and support structuring actions, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings in the long term, through energy efficiency, rational use of water, distributed generation and urban mobility.

In the SECOND PHASE, the main objective is the structuring of governance elements and public policies in cities, capable of making viable and permanent measures for energy efficiency in buildings and systems, expansion and diversity in energy supply, reduction in gas emissions greenhouse effect and resilience to climate change. The focus of this phase was on the city of Florianópolis, three main ones:

  • Development of a tool for recording and monitoring costs and consumption of electrical energy in public buildings in synergy with the DEO tool – Operational Energy Performance in Buildings from the CBCS – Brazilian Council for Sustainable Construction and the MMA – Ministry of the Environment.
  • Training designers in energy efficiency measures for buildings as a premise for carrying out new projects and renovations of municipal public buildings.
  • Structuring guiding principles for public policies, normative instructions, programs and regulations, involving the construction industry, the city and society, applicable both at the scale of municipal public buildings and at the scale of cities, creating an environment conducive to the establishment of new models of business.

In the THIRD PHASE, the project team, together with EGEM (Municipal Public Management School), is holding a series of workshops on energy efficiency for managers and public servants in the municipalities of Santa Catarina during the second half of 2021. The objective of the workshop is to expand the Efficient Cities project, developed by the Brazilian Council for Sustainable Construction – CBCS in partnership with Florianópolis City Hall and financed by the Climate and Society Institute (FASE II), to other municipalities, impacting them in terms of:

  • organization of public accounts and efficiency in the use of public resources;
  • training public authorities in identifying opportunities for energy efficiency and the reduction of associated greenhouse gas emissions;
  • technical training of public agents;
  • basis for formulating public policies related to the topic of energy efficiency at municipal level based on effective gains;
  • implementation and sustainability in the application of energy and water consumption management strategies and the adoption of energy efficiency measures in municipal public buildings.

To learn more about the project, the solutions and the results achieved, visit:

Efficient Cities Project website: http://cidadeseficientes.cbcs.org.br/

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