EDGE certification around the world

EDGE is a green building certification program that aims to make structures more efficient in terms of resources, such as energy, water and materials. With free software to assess the efficiency of these resources, the EDGE green building certification makes it faster and easier to build a more sustainable building.

The EDGE certification has been growing and benefiting in recent years around the world, and is already present in more than 200 countries. Because it is a very simple certification to obtain, there are already more than 500 certified buildings in just 8 years of existence. In the last 2 years, even with the pandemic, there were around 140 certified buildings, demonstrating the strength of this certification.

Currently, the country that certifies the most buildings with EDGE is Colombia, with 118 buildings. But the certification also has a strong impact in Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico. It is a strong certification, especially for emerging and developing countries, with rapid urbanization. In Brazil, there are currently 17 certified projects, but there is significant growth in the search for certification.

Although Colombia has the highest absolute number of certified buildings, where there are most EDGE Advanced certifications is in Southeast Asia, that is, it is where there are most certifications with more than 40% energy savings.

When we talk about decarbonization, we can see that thanks to EDGE we are already avoiding the emission of around 158 thousand tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Once again, the countries that reduced the most emissions were Southeast Asian countries, but countries such as Colombia, Mexico, India and South Africa also saw significant reductions in CO2 emissions.

As zero carbon certification is relatively new, there are only 4 companies in the world that have received the certification. In Mexico, Bulgaria, India and the Philippines.

In Mexico, the Ufficio BJX building obtained certification after a retrofit that transformed the building from residential to office. Low-absorption measures were used in the facades and roof, efficient lighting, ceiling fans, and a photovoltaic energy generation system. The building achieved savings of 50% in energy, 23% in water, and 36% in energy embedded in materials.

In Bulgaria, the Procredit bank building was built with 50% energy savings, 46% water savings and 94% savings in materials. To achieve these efficiency values, they included a lower wall-to-window ratio, thermal insulation, high-performance glazing, air conditioning and lighting, photovoltaic energy production, presence sensors, off-site renewable energy production and carbon offsets.

In India, Stallion Group laboratories have achieved 100% energy savings by using a lower wall-to-window ratio, thermal insulation, high-performance glazing, central chilled water and VRF air conditioning, efficient lighting, photovoltaic power generation, occupancy sensors and smart meters. In addition, we have also achieved 60% savings in water and 40% in materials.

Finally, in the Philippines, the Arthaland Century Pacific Tower achieved 45% energy savings, with low-absorption facades, external shading elements, thermal insulation, high-performance glass, VRF air conditioning, solar photovoltaic energy, efficient lighting, off-site renewable energy and even heat recovery from the combustion system.