Exclusive event at the BEIS Conference Centre demonstrated how EDGE is being used to decarbonise the building sector.

IFC’s EDGE green building standard has certified over 47 million square metres of floorspace globally, becoming one of the fastest growing internationally recognized certifications for green buildings in the world. To share the global success of the green building standard, international EDGE certifier Sintali co-hosted an event with IFC and the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

‘The UK government is really proud to support EDGE. It’s enabling of mass market transformation and represents a unique opportunity for countries to deliver on this and benefit from the green transition. This is what needs to happen at pace and scale if we are going to keep one and a half degrees within reach,’ said Kate Hughes, Director of International Climate Change, BEIS.

The event gathered guests from a range of major financial institutions, decision-makers from property companies and asset owners, to illustrate how EDGE can be used to achieve scale in the green building sector and deploy the capital necessary to meet ambitious net zero targets. With 80 attendees from a range of institutions, participants explored how and why decarbonising our built environment must lie at the centre of both public and private sector sustainability strategies.

Speakers included Dr Donovan Storey, Head of Global Policy and Influence at Reall; Sanjay Dutt, MD and CEO of Tata Realty & Infrastructure Limited; Carlos Viesca, Head of Sustainability at Fibra Macquarie and Shruti Jhanwar, Compliance Manager at Aavas Financiers Ltd, as well as representatives from BEIS and IFC.

‘The UK has become one of the core supporters for the EDGE programme,’ said Corinne Figueredo, Head of Operations for EDGE Green Building Certification at IFC. ‘The UK is known across the world not only as a leader in building design but of course as a leader in financial innovation. I am thrilled to see so many here from the design advisory side and developers but also from the financial side. It’s the financial side that we see as having the ability to make the market take off. We are here today to demonstrate how we can facilitate this transformation.’

In 2018, IFC and BEIS forged a partnership to combat climate change in developing countries through financing certified green buildings.  As part of this programme, BEIS put funding towards catalysing construction markets by incentivizing the development of green buildings through certification with  EDGE and other leading certification systems. Since the programme started deploying funding from BEIS, it has grown by 244%. This has resulted in significant environmental achievements, saving currently just under 950,000 tons of CO2 per year.

‘BEIS’ support of EDGE sends a strong market signal to the UK market and beyond that this is a tool to be adopted globally. Europe must set an example to the rest of the world that it is committed to decarbonising the built environment and reaching net zero emissions by 2050. EDGE provides a unique solution that enables this to happen in a resource-effective way. It’s relevant to all stakeholders from developers to multinationals to owners/occupiers to banks to homeowners to municipal governments. Today’s event showed us what’s possible. Now it’s time to turn that into action,” said Eleni Polychroniadou, Co-Founder of Sintali.

Watch highlights from the event here.