I Just stumbled across a press release at The Mayor of London’s website about and a climate initiative to make buildings cleaner and greener

The Mayor of London joined with President Clinton and mayors from cities across the world to announced the creation of a global Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme – to cut carbon emissions by making existing commercial buildings more energy efficient.

With nearly three quarters of emissions in the capital come from energy use in buildings, it makes very good sense to improve energy efficiency although I suspect that the building and construction sector may not be too compliant.

According to Ken Livingstone, who spoke at the C40 cities climate summit in New York, London could save millions of pounds and five million tonnes of CO2 each year – about ten per cent of London’s total emissions – if every commercial and public sector building takes up the offer to become more energy efficient. The 900 buildings run by the Greater London Authority group alone, could save more than 50,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, and save at least one million pounds through lower energy bills, providing more money for investment in public services. This is an attractive prospect indeed.

The Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative with the C40 cities brings together four of the world’s largest Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), five of the world’s largest banks and fifteen of the world’s largest cities. The programme will offer building owners a package with three elements: (1) an energy audit to quantify current energy use and emissions from a building and recommendations on a full range of measures to reduce them, (2) a comprehensive, discounted offer of goods and services guaranteed to deliver the identified reductions, and (3) finance to pay for the works, paid back through the guaranteed energy savings.

This initiative will deliver a real economic benefit for participating public sector and commercial organisations, typically leading to annual energy savings between 20 and 50 per cent. The initiative also creates opportunities for London’s businesses that provide energy efficiency building services, since it will draw on subcontractors in each of the cities where the partnership operates.

You can read the full story in their press release here, or just join in the fun, buy solar panels and do your bit to save the world.