The Sustainable Business and Industry Programme aims to enhance energy and resource efficiency, supporting the deployment of renewable energy systems and more sustainable practices in the commercial and industrial sectors, including tourism.
The draft Regional Energy Efficiency Strategy (REES) identifies the industrial, commercial and tourism sectors as regional priorities due to their high relevance for the majority of CARICOM Member States. The biggest sectoral challenges and needs in these sectors relate to limited knowledge and capacities to identify and implement suitable energy projects, and to monitor the compliance of lighting, appliances and equipment with applicable standards. Targeted policies and incentives for each sub-sector are required to account for the differences in energy consumption patterns, available capacities, resources and access to financing mechanisms. From a cross-cutting perspective, the biggest challenges for energy efficiency in the region relate to the need for a stronger institutional and policy framework, lack of accessible financing mechanisms, high upfront costs, as well as limited local capacities and low awareness of available technologies and options.
The Sustainable Business & Industry Programme aims to address these challenges through a mix of intervention measures:
To support the improvement of the energy performance and deployment of renewable energy technologies in the business and industry sectors, the CCREEE will aid the implementation of energy audits and energy management systems of targeted energy efficiency measures in line with existing minimum energy performance standards and codes (like the Caribbean Regional Energy Efficiency Building Code – CREEBC). This will be achieved through a range of capacity building measures, knowledge products like guidelines and factsheets, hands-on tools for practitioners in the sector, awareness raising initiatives and concrete implementation projects. In all its programmes, the CCREEE is working toward stronger regional coordination and cooperation – amongst others through the sharing of intelligence, knowledge products and experiences in the CARICOM Energy Knowledge Hub (CEKH). The centre Project Preparation Facility (PPF) will further support the development of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects through to the bankability stage.