Towards Sustainable Social Housing for All

Since 2010, the Ministry of Housing, Cities and Land – MVCT in Spanish – has challenged Colombian housing deficits by, among others politics and programs, giving 100% subsidized housing to the populations most in need. In these sense, between 2010‐2014, 100000 houses were successfully delivered to the poorest Colombian families, reaching a goal that was never attained before. However, efforts continue and our goal extents for more population groups establishing other social housing programs that will continue to be developed between 2014‐2018. Furthermore, our biggest challenge is to keep improving social housing quality for everyone implementing sustainable strategies in their development. This is a significant dare as Colombia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Additionally, urban population is growing in high rates, increasing energy and water consumption in cities along with the GHG emissions related to this consumption. In these sense, the country’s construction and buildings sector has embraced the responsibility to decrease GHG emissions, attending the commitments established during the COP 21. Consequently, the Ministry has formulated a Plan to manage Climate Change in buildings and territories, composed by adaptation and mitigation strategies. In this sense, as a first step, we have adopted regulations in Sustainable Construction that aim towards water and energy savings in buildings preparing the construction sector in understanding Climate Change. Moreover, an important goal of the Plan, also as part of the implementation of the decree, is to formulate innovative financing mechanisms to allow sustainable technologies access in housing. Having this in mind, Mexico, Germany and Colombia developed a triangular cooperation arrangement during 2014. We designed a pilot whose goal is to explore possibilities to create an innovative financing mechanism for sustainable social housing, suitable for the different types of climates and cultures in the country. For the case study, it was chosen SIDE EVENT FOR THE HABITAT III CONFERENCE existing and new housing units in 5 different cities of Colombia to incorporate sustainable technologies that saved water, energy and gas. Specifically, LEDS lamps, energy savers fridges, gas water heaters, efficient washing machines, among other equipment were provided to these houses. The chosen cities corresponded to the country’s different types of climate: Bogotá, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla and Valledupar. During 2015, we monitored and quantified energy, water and gas savings resultant of the use of these efficient technologies the pilot’s houses. The results showed significant variations offering the users and the government’s possible savings scenarios. This experiment provided evidence of sustainable technologies implementation in social housing and showed a new panorama of possible market opportunities regarding green development. With the association with banking and financial corporations, the aim now is to generate the first financial mechanism that will allow social housing to have access to these technologies. Our objective is not only to tackle housing quality deficit and poverty reduction but also to respond to the country’s adaptation and mitigation agenda. We believe this can be the first step to improve the green building sector, towards a more sustainable social housing in Colombia.