Supporting cities to strive for net zero carbon buildings
The C40 Cities South Africa Buildings Programme, launched in 2018 in Tshwane, works with Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Tshwane to support their plans to achieve net zero carbon new buildings. The four C40 cities made commitments in 2018 through the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Accelerator to achieve net zero carbon new buildings by 2030 and all buildings by 2050.
The programme is focused on new buildings and is delivered in partnership with Sustainable Energy Africa (SEA), based in South Africa. It includes embedded expert advisors working in each city to develop net zero carbon building policies and bylaws as part of a roadmap to achieve net zero carbon new buildings by 2030. Their work is supported by additional technical expertise from SEA and other organisations in South Africa, supporting policy development, capacity building and knowledge sharing activities.
The C40 South Africa Buildings Programme is one of two country level initiatives within C40’s global Building Energy 2020 Programme (BE2020), the other being in China. Funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), BE2020 is supporting more than 50 cities to take action and develop policies that curb emissions from existing buildings, avoid carbon lock-in from low performing buildings, and help cities utilise buildings as sources of low carbon energy.
The C40 South Africa Buildings Programme helps to reduce emissions across new buildings and includes the following focus areas:
- Developing roadmaps to achieving net zero carbon buildings by 2030.
- Developing net zero carbon policy and regulation that support net zero carbon buildings.
- Stakeholder engagement to support policy development and implementation.
- Developing compliance tools, processes and capacity to support policy and regulation implementation.