EDGE Buildings 280d ago

As a global investor in emerging markets, IFC has over US$45B in annual commitments, including in Mexico, a country with significant momentum on the path towards decarbonization. Mexico ranks as the third-largest country globally in terms of EDGE certified floor space with over10 million square meters. This figure represents a substantial percentage of the entire floor space certified by EDGE on a global scale. The certification growth in Mexico is in part due to IFC’s GRIP program, which combines investment advice to “green real estate investment portfolios.” As Mexico receives billions in foreign direct investment connected to nearshoring, its industrial floorspace is growing rapidly and many of these industrial properties are EDGE certified, including in key cities like Monterrey. Green certifications like EDGE are increasingly important for competitiveness on the global landscape. We are investigating how to certify entire industrial parks with an eco-industrial label. An additional growing area of focus in Mexico's sustainability journey involves cooling: According to IFC’s research, mean annual temperatures in the Monterrey area of Mexico are expected to increase by at least 1 degree Celsius in the near term, and up to 2.2 degrees by mid-century, with many more days over 40 degrees and reaching highs of 46 C. This temperature increase will have negative effects on everything from data centers and cold chain logistics to factories that may not have cooling needs now but will have to significantly increase their cooling load in order to compensate for the rising heat. IFC’s Sustainable Cooling Initiative is a “five by five” strategy that is designed to scale up investments in sustainable cooling. Through project preparation program funded by the UK Government, the Initiative provides strategic and technical assistance to IFC investee companies to embed more sustainable cooling into their operations, as part of their larger decarbonization offer.