Building Energy Legislation and Incentives, a Latin American Vision Towards Regenerative Design Chapter in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • Global climate concerns have largely contributed to developing sustainable solutions throughout different industries. In the building sector, one of the most polluting industries due to its high energy consumption, designers generally seek to reduce negative impacts on the environment by trying to cover the pillars of sustainability. However, this may no longer be enough, and it is necessary to generate positive impacts that can reverse the impact of buildings on climate change. This new approach changes the expression from less bad to better. Positive Carbon/Energy Building (PCB/PEB) is one of the approaches that focuses on creating new relationship between natural energy sources and appropriate construction materials, repairing atmosphere from emissions, as well as increasing well-being and comfort of occupants. This approach implies a positive energy conversion where all the aspects involved in the design allow to generate more energy than is needed, through renewable sources, by the building itself. In order to apply these strategies in the societies, it is necessary to have a legislative framework sensitive to new needs and aimed at promoting the integration of different measures, not only where energy efficiency measures are required but also the generation of positive energy from renewable sources. In Latin America, despite the variety of socio-economic situations and climatic differences, there are many points in common. One of them is the commitment and progress that has been made around the generation of sustainable building regulations that allow generating a base to move towards regenerative buildings. This chapter seeks to map out a regional vision of current sustainable building legislation and incentive plans to motivate citizens in shaping a regenerative future, by focusing on the energy aspect. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

publication date

  • January 1, 2025