Sector Arquitectura Verde

Mexico is catching up with the green design, construction and building practices that have seen a tremendous evolution over the recent years. For more than 20 years, Mexican companies have beenselling green building products with increasing acceptance. Such products include low volatile organic compound materials (low VOC) and paints, recovered materials, full solar and photovoltaic systems,wind power, light tunnels and more including the upgrade and recovery of previously-contaminated sites.
The slower acceptance of such technologies and services in Mexico has to do in part with the factthat the Mexican government has subsidized the cost of electricity over the years to the point where the payback rates are lengthy. This makes the technology less cost-effective to incorporate ingreen design and building practices and structures. As costs are coming down, technology evolves and Mexican and foreign consumers and taxpayers are becoming more interested in implementing thetechnologies, more and more builders are using the practices.
Since 2001, government agencies and private sector groups have been experimenting with the use of alternative and renewable energy sources on alarge scale in Mexico. Several of them are working to tie in with the energy grid to feed the national system and obtain carbon credits or net zero operations.
According to the sources consulted, thepotential value of the market for the sustainable construction would be able to reach the $376 million dollars in 2012.
Similar to other emerging economies Mexico is moving towards “green” orfriendlier environmental activities. The construction industry has embraced the green building movement. Mexico has been joined as a World Green Building Council (WGBC) member by Brazil and Argentina, whileother nations in Latin America are developing green building councils. Latin America can learn from European, Canadian and United States best practices and occasional missteps to reap the cost and...