Joint goal to promote low carbon building, green investment & resilience in built environment in Kenya
What’s it all about?
The Kenya Green Building Society (KGBS) and Climate Bonds have just signed a new MoU in Nairobi aiming to stimulate take up of Certified low carbon buildings. As demand for green financial products and climate risk disclosure grows, KGBS will work with Climate Bonds to help government and private sector actors take advantage by incorporating green debt into their investment processes and mitigating climate risks connected to their assets.
The core mission of KGBS - the local chapter and emerging status member of the World Green Building Council (WGBC) - is to advocate for, educate toward, and Certify green buildings in Kenya through collaborations with public, private and non-governmental organisations.
Who’s saying what?
Elizabeth Wangeci Chege, Chairperson of the Kenya Green Building Society & Regional Vice-Chair of the Africa Regional Network of the World Green Building Council:
“We are delighted to be supporting the Climate Bonds Initiative. We look forward to working in partnership with CBI and its network in driving the property market to deliver a built environment which achieves social, economic and environmental sustainability in Kenya and beyond."
“KGBS will continue to advocate for green buildings which go beyond low carbon footprints to deliver triple bottom line returns, and looks forward to becoming a CBI Approved Verifier for low carbon buildings.”
Sean Kidney, CEO Climate Bonds Initiative:
“As African cities undergo rapid expansion, the built environment challenge is to keep energy consumption low, energy efficiency high and increase climate resilience."
“Improved design, assessment and verification processes around green buildings helps build trust in new opportunities for expanding green credit markets.”
“This MoU with KGBS represents a new step towards developing investable climate solutions in the property sector that contribute to, as Kenya embarks on its green bond development program through a debut sovereign bond and as single name issuers emerge in the market, the rapid growth in the built environment is ripe for climate resilient investments.”
The Last Word
In March 2017, Climate Bonds was signatory with the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa) in conjunction with the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to a 3 year program to build green bond capability in Kenya & East Africa.
This MoU is aimed more specifically at the green building sector in Kenya and is another step in developing green finance capabilities.
Congratulations to the KGBS! We look forward to working together.
There's lots more green stories to come from Kenya, Blog readers will be kept informed of progress as our partnership grows.
‘Till next time,
Climate Bonds
