Background

The new International Finance Corporation (IFC) and UNEP Cool Coalition joint report, Cooler Finance: Mobilizing Investment for the Developing World’s Sustainable Cooling Needs, identifies numerous private investment opportunities across different segments of the cooling market. Notably, space cooling is the fastest growing market with expectations of almost tripling the investment opportunity by 2050 to $332 billion per year.

The market for passive cooling strategies in developing economies for new buildings and retrofitting, at approximately $30 billion, is already significant. However, it needs to expand dramatically to deliver near-zero emissions by 2050, through scaled-up adoption and enforcement of building energy codes.

This webinar is part of the Cool Talks UNEP Cool Coalition webinar series, and is jointly launched by the UNEP-led Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), the UNEP Cool Coalition, and IFC. The knowledge of the webinar catered to the implementation of the global commitments on sustainable space cooling, such as the Global Cooling Pledge and the Declaration de Chaillot.

The webinar went through the main messages of the Cooler Finance report relevant to space cooling, including the blueprint for financing sustainable cooling with an emphasis on mobilizing private investment. This included case studies on passive cooling strategies, including analysis on payback periods for private sector action and recommendations for building codes through public policy. The webinar introduced tools such as IFC’s EDGE Green Buildings Market Transformation program, which can assist both public and private sector actors in identifying resource efficient measures. The webinar also featured the latest trends in innovation for active space cooling, learned in part through IFC’s TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling Program, presented by partner ACAIRE.

The attendees received a Fact Sheet of information from the “Cooler Finance” report relevant to space cooling along with presentation materials and links to case studies.

Agenda

• Welcome / Webinar Overview / Housekeeping

  • Ms. Lily Riahi – UNEP/Cool Coalition

• Opening Remarks

  • Ms. Diep Nguyen-van Houtte, IFC
  • Mr. Jonathan Duwyn, UNEP/GlobalABC

• Part 1 Presentation – Passive Cooling

  • Mr. Gennai Kamata, UNEP/GlobalABC/Cool Coalition – Accelerating Finance on Passive Cooling

• Part 2 Presentation – Innovation for Space Cooling

  • Mr. Bolivar Monroy, ACAIRE – Innovation for Space Cooling

• Q&A

  • Moderated by Mr. Rusmir Musić, IFC

• Closing Remarks

  • Mr. Gennai Kamata, UNEP/Cool Coalition/GlobalABC

Resources

• Recording
• Summary article