Housing officials from Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Savlador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama met to examine experiences from Latin America in the incorporation of renewable energy and energy efficiency in the design and construction of public housing with a view of generating guidelines for such housing among SICA nations.
August 2012: A Central American Integration System (SICA) workshop has resulted in a series of initial draft guidelines on sustainable energy solutions in the design and construction of Central American and Dominican housing projects.
The workshop, which brought together national housing officials from Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama to examine successful experiences elsewhere in Latin America incorporating renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in the design and construction of public housing, was sponsored by SICA’s Central American Council on Housing and Human Settlements (CCVAH), and held 8-9 August 2012 in the Dominican Republic.
The workshop focused in particular on Chile’s experience in energy efficient building systems and the incorporation of renewable energy in basic public housing. It also heard from the Central American Council of Sustainable Architecture and Building on the technical instruments for sustainable building certification and the environmental issues to be taken into consideration in the construction of housing and human settlements. [SICA Press Release (in Spanish)]