Cities are facing an urgent need to accelerate their transition toward resilient, low-carbon, and inclusive development models while ensuring the financial viability of strategic investments. This session presents the city of Barranquilla as a Latin American example of how the integrated implementation of GBCI programs — LEED for Cities, LEED for Communities, LEED Commercial and PERFORM — can serve as a practical framework to attract investment, improve decision-making, and deliver measurable impact at the urban scale.
Through Barranquilla’s experience with LEED for Cities, the session will demonstrate how measuring and managing urban performance enables cities to guide public policy, prioritize investments, and increase transparency for investors and financial institutions. In parallel, an innovation case led by Constructora Bolívar will showcase how the application of PERFORM supports operational performance measurement at the building level, contributing to broader urban goals related to efficiency, emissions reduction, and occupant well-being.
The session will also present a LEED for Communities project as a planning tool for integrated urban development, illustrating how the community scale connects long-term urban planning with sustainable project implementation.
Finally, the discussion will highlight the strategic role of public banks and financial institutions in mobilizing capital toward sustainable urban development. It will explore how GBCI frameworks help reduce investment risk, improve impact traceability, and support investment decisions aligned with ESG criteria. Barranquilla’s experience demonstrates how aligning international standards, public leadership, private developers, and financial institutions enables cities to move from isolated initiatives toward measurable, investment-ready urban transformation.
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