Scaling up sustainable housing to implement the New Urban Agenda

Mexico has been successful with the deployment of a national sustainable housing strategy through the collaboration of public and private stakeholders towards both environmental and social goals. The strategy was based on focusing financial instruments towards low income housing to develop a national market both for technology as well as for specialists in architecture, energy related to the housing industry. The first steps were supported by the international community, as well as by global funds such as the NAMA Facility, through which Mexico has implemented the Sustainable Housing NAMA, surpassing the established goals. However, there is a limit to the amount of greenhouse gas emissions reduced per home, especially in social housing; thus it is necessary to scale up from the house as a unit, and start the optimization of housing developments and city sectors.

In order to be able to achieve the goals set by the New Urban Agenda, Mexico needs to accelerate the transition towards sustainable housing developments, which will establish precedents towards next steps spanning existing neighborhoods and cities. This event aggregates both specialists and institutions engaged in developing appropriate instruments (technical, financial, social, etc.).It will help define general guidelines and identify best practices in order to stimulate the implementation of this next phase of the National Sustainable Housing Strategy.