Mexico. Within the framework of the Building Efficency Accelerator (BEA) Forum, which was held in parallel to the GreenBuild Mexico event; Clay Nesler, Vice President of Industrial Initiatives and Global Sustainability at Johnson Controls, presented the results obtained for Mexico from the global survey "Johnson Controls Energy Efficiency Indicator".
The Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA) is a public-private partnership that turns global best practices related to energy efficiency into actions to accelerate the development and implementation of policies and programs.
Every year Johnson Controls conducts the global survey "Energy Efficiency Indicator" which measures the main indicators of energy efficiency and driving factors of current and planned investments by entrepreneurs.
Since its first implementation in 2007, the Johnson Controls Energy Efficiency Indicator has measured the perspectives of more than 24,000 energy management leaders, facility managers and building owners around the world. This edition interviewed more than 1,500 global leaders, including 560 from the Latin American region, about the most common trends and policies driving investment in energy efficiency.
The survey revealed that 62% of the organizations surveyed in Mexico are giving greater importance to the issue of energy efficiency in buildings, than a year ago, which translates into investment. 40% of companies plan to increase their investments in energy efficiency and renewables over the course of the next year and an additional 56% plan to maintain investment at its current level.
Today 61% of companies rated energy cost savings as very or extremely important as driving factors for making investment decisions.
Some of the most relevant energy measures that organizations have implemented in the last twelve months include improvements in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and improvements in building control systems (53%), renewable energy in facilities (51%), behavioral or educational programs focused on energy issues (44%) and integration of building systems (44%).
In terms of investments planned for the next twelve months, renewable energies in the facilities occupied the first place; 60% of respondents indicated that they had plans to invest. In second place were improvements to building control systems (56%), improvements to heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (51%) and thermal energy storage (51%).
It was revealed that the main barriers to the development of energy efficiency are the lack of allocation of funds to finance the improvements, as well as the lack of knowledge and experience for the evaluation or execution of projects.
Today there is a growing demand for green buildings, which drives the demand for net-zero energy buildings. 43% of the organizations surveyed indicated that they have or plan to have at least one certified green building and 71% of companies are willing to pay a surcharge on the rent of space in a certified green building. For the next 10 years, organizations are developing strategies to achieve near-zero net energy, net zero energy, or net positive energy status for at least one building.
Similarly, a trend that is gaining increasing momentum is the integration of building systems due to the growing demand for smart buildings. During the past twelve months, 44% of companies invested in systems integration and 41% plan to do so in the next 12 months.
Energy management, safety and life protection systems occupy the first place of integrated solutions and 39% of respondents indicate that such systems have already been integrated with other technological systems of buildings, in second place are lighting systems and business systems.
