IC-PAP3085/2021 - International Consultancy: Results and impacts of Energy Efficiency in Buildings projects and potential for NDC implementation

Consultant Environment

Overview

Compile results of UNDP projects on energy efficiency improvements.

You have:

• Advanced degree (Masters level or higher) in environmental management, climate change mitigation, clean energy, engineering, environmental sciences, evaluation, or a related subject
• Minimum 10 years of relevant professional experience working on climate change mitigation and energy projects
• Technical knowledge and experience in the area of development projects on energy efficiency improvement in buildings
• Previous experience with impact assessment and/or quantifying (co-)benefits of climate mitigation projects
• Fluency in English language is a Must

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

IC-PAP3085/2021 - International Consultancy: Results and impacts of Energy Efficiency in Buildings projects and potential for NDC implementation.

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Description of assignment: Consultative Services for International Consultancy: Junior Communications and Partnership Expert: China, Biodiversity & Climate Change

Project: Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI)

Type of Consultancy: International Post.

Duty Station: Home Base.

Period of assignment/services: 50 Working Days – over a period of 6 months.

Estimated Starting Date: 1 May 2021 until 15 October 2021

Proposals should be submitted: Not later than 24th of April 2021, 17:00 COB (+03:00GMT/ Istanbul Time)

Important Notices:

• THIS IS A DELIVERABLE BASED INDIVIDUAL CONTRACT AND NOT WORKING DAYS-BASED CONTRACT.
• Proposals should be submitted through the UNDP Jobs Portal only no later than COB 3rd of April 2021 (Istanbul Time: +3 GMT).

Please note the following:

• Proposers MUST provide the financial offers in their submission as in the format of Annex 1. The form can be downloaded from https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=77405
• Request for Clarification: Any request for clarification must be sent in writing via e-mail to the procurement officer mentioned in the Procurement Notice [[email protected]].
• The latest day to receive and respond to inquiries is 2 days prior to the closure of the procurement notice; UNDP will provide a written response, via the Procurement Notice website, without identifying the source of inquiry.

Duties and Responsibilities

1.Background

UNDP has more than 20 years of experience in the sustainable energy field. This experience substantiates the critical role of sustainable energy as an engine for poverty eradication, social progress, gender equality, enhanced resilience, economic growth and environmental sustainability and evidences the direct impacts on people, communities and countries. Unsustainable patterns of energy production and consumption threaten not only human health and quality of life but also affect ecosystems and contribute to increased anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which accelerate climate change.

One of the areas in which UNDP has been supporting countries is on the improvement of energy efficiency in new buildings as well as energy efficiency retrofits in existing buildings. Energy efficiency in buildings is a crucial sector to aim for emission reduction and associated benefits due to its share on global final energy consumption. Buildings consume about 35% of the worlds’ total final energy and this percentage keeps growing [1] Global total final energy consumption per square meter in buildings fell by 1.3% per year between 2010 and 2014, which is not enough to offset 3% per year growth in floor area and increase in demand for energy services in buildings. As a result, building-related CO2 emissions have continued to rise by nearly 1% per year since 2010 [2] To reverse this trend a great deal of work is required for continual adoption and enforcement of energy efficient building practices.

UNDPs work on energy efficiency in buildings focuses on removing barriers, creating enabling market environments and catalyzing financing for increased investment in energy efficient buildings. UNDP thereby assists countries in creating favorable market environments for investment in energy efficiency via a combination of policy and financial de-risking instruments and targeted financial incentives to key energy efficiency market players. Among policy de-risking instruments, stringent, continuously updated and well-enforced building codes have emerged most prominently and proved to be most effective in achieving energy efficiency improvements in buildings at large scale and at low cost. UNDP also supports the implementation of business models (ESCO, public-private partnerships) and financing mechanisms for energy efficiency investment and provides targeted financial assistance to the vulnerable groups in cases when affordability of up-front investment is a particular concern. Taken collectively, these measures ensure that market demand for energy efficiency in buildings is in place along with required technical capacity and affordable financing to realize and scale up energy-saving measures in buildings.

The Government of Sweden, through Sida, has funded a four-year, USD$40m global Strategic Collaboration Programme designed to strengthen UNDP capacities to achieve its overall sustainable development vision for poverty eradication through a more integrated, coherent approach to the environmental and climate dimensions of the UNDP Strategic Plan. Sida funds will be used to hire new staff and consultants, including to support elements of this consultancy.

Box 1: Examples of UNDP GEF projects focusing on energy efficiency in buildings

In Brazil, UNDP, together with IADB, is implementing a program to improve energy efficiency in buildings, transforming the market for Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), and to put in place a partial credit guarantee mechanism to leverage investment in the sector.

In Armenia, building on an earlier Global Environment Facility (GEF) project, UNDP aims at creating a favorable market environment and scalable business model for investment in energy-efficient building retrofits with recently approved funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Direct beneficiaries include: 30,000 people living in single-family individual buildings and 52,200 in multi-family apartment buildings, including at least 6,000 members of women-headed households; and 23,000 users of large public buildings and 105,000 users of small public buildings, including at least 90,000 women.

In the Western Balkan countries, Turkey and Russia, UNDP has supported the introduction of Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) in public buildings and their use to monitor and improve the efficiency of energy use. EMIS now cover thousands of buildings across the region.

UNDP is monitoring the impact of its sustainable energy projects by reporting on indicators as agreed in the Project Document, which forms the basis of each project. By means of annual reporting, progress in realizing project indicators is monitored. Mid-term and Terminal evaluations analyze overall project achievements and experiences to allow for project adjustments (mid-term) and analysis of sustainability of overall results of the project (Terminal evaluation). The project monitoring results allow UNDP to compile development results of all energy projects globally. Compilation of development results of UNDPs projects on energy efficiency in buildings has not been done recently. This assignment is aiming for further analysis of development results of UNDPs work on energy efficiency in buildings over the past 10 years with a view to the future for optimum use of the results in light of the ongoing climate challenge.

2.Objective:

The aim of this assignment is to compile results of UNDP projects in the area of energy efficiency improvements in buildings in order to learn from the experiences and develop guidance on how the results can be made useful to the ongoing climate challenge. In order to further gain insights in success factors and challenges to removing barriers, creating enabling market environments and catalyzing financing for increased investment in energy efficient buildings, a consultancy is being sourced to conduct a study on compiling the results of UNDPs work on energy efficiency improvement in buildings in the last decade and put this in the perspective of climate policies. This assignment will entail analysis of some 40 projects on energy efficiency improvement in buildings which UNDP has supported in 32 countries over the past 10 year with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and complement this with the vast literature available on energy efficiency in buildings as well as climate policies. The assignment will be building on earlier work of UNDP on energy efficiency in buildings, highlighted in the publications “Promoting Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Lessons learned from international experience”, UNDP, 2010 and “Modernising Building Energy Codes”, IEA & UNDP, 2013 as well as further internal analysis conducted in 2012.

The analysis should result in three blogs presenting (interim-) results on the topic and a report to be used for dissemination efforts with a regional or global reach. The consultant will also contribute to the development of an online webinar and lead the discussions in this event.

3.Tasks and Responsibilities:

The consultant will work with the Energy, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology (EITT) Team in the UNDP/GEF Regional Coordination Unit (RCU) in Bangkok, under the supervision of the Regional Technical Advisers.

This analysis will make use of information available from annual Project Implementation Review (PIR) reports, Mid-Term Review (MTR) reports and where available Terminal Evaluation (TE) reports of some 40 UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings implemented from 2010-2020. In addition, interviews with relevant stakeholders in the 32 countries will be conducted to gain additional information and insights in the sustainability of project results. The consultant is thereby asked to identify the results of these projects in terms of removing barriers, creating enabling market environments and catalyzing financing for increased investment in energy efficient buildings in the 32 countries. In order to do so, it will be useful to develop a database and a framework for the analysis that distinguishes in work on new building development as compared to building retrofits, while considering different building types and distinctive building ownership modalities.

The consultant is also expected to draw on the information available in the global domain on energy efficiency in buildings and put the results of the UNDP projects in a broader context. In order to translate the findings from projects on energy efficiency in buildings to its use for climate policies, the consultant is asked to complement the analysis with information on impact of energy efficiency in buildings on climate change and its broader socio-economic impact in terms of job creation, economic growth and recovery and climate resilience. An analysis of content of NDCs on energy efficiency in buildings should inform the potential to apply lessons learned from UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings for NDC implementation. For this part of the analysis, a link with ongoing UNDP work under UNDP’s NDC enhancement initiative “The Climate Promise” and UNDP analysis on NDCs and Green Recovery can be explored.

The compilation of project results should provide an overview of lessons learned, challenges encountered, success factors and guidance for policy makers on how these lessons can be used in future to address the climate challenge as imagined in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which provide national strategies for GHG emission reductions over the next decades.

Summary of Key Research questions to be covered in the report:

Impact assessment of UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings:

1. What can be a useful framework to analyze the results of UNDPs projects on energy efficiency in buildings, considering the difference in approaches needed for different types of building market segments (new buildings, existing buildings, commercial, public and residential buildings, buildings owners and tenants)?
2. How can the data available from PIRs, MTRs, TEs and other available information from UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings be analyzed by means of a database, also considering the framework identified under question 1?
3. What should be key factors to consider in impact assessment of UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings (e.g. GHG emissions, transformational change/paradigm shift, cost effectiveness, barrier removal, investment mobilized, etc)?
4. How can success factors, challenges and barriers be best identified for the UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings?
5. How can results of UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings as analyzed by answering questions 3 and 4 be best presented?
6. How can the results presented as a response to question 5 be analyzed in the broader context of informational available globally on successful improvement of energy efficiency in buildings?

Assessment of using the results of impact assessment UNDP projects for NDCs:

7. To what extent do intended efforts on energy efficiency in buildings play a role in (updated) NDCs?

8. How can the results of lessons learned from UNDP projects on energy efficiency in buildings be useful for NDC implementation?

9. To what extent can broader socio-economic impact of energy efficiency in buildings, e.g. in terms of job creation, economic growth and recovery and climate resilience, play a role in emphasizing the positive role that energy efficiency in buildings can play in NDC implementation?

Key content expected from this research are:

• Insights in strengths and weaknesses of UNDP’s work on energy efficiency in buildings and lessons learned related to successful interventions and best practice projects including their strategies and interventions as well as unsuccessful approaches and risks involved in building development including corruption and how to address these risks in technical assistance projects
• Insights in different approaches needed for new building development versus retrofitting existing buildings including different approaches for different ownership models.
• Insights in developments over the past 10 year and most recent and promising trends in energy efficiency in buildings, related to technology development as well as soft measures and integrated (e.g. urban) approaches
• Insights in most urgent current challenges for accelerating energy efficiency investments in buildings, including ideas on possible directions for building energy code enforcement, opportunities for building energy passports and building energy labels, opportunities (and limitations) for ESCO business models in different building market segments
• Insights in potential of energy efficiency in buildings for NDC implementation, including co-benefits such as health related benefits, job creation benefits, green city development and prospects for including energy efficiency in buildings in investment packages for green recovery

Summary of key content of the blogs to be developed:

1. One blog after 2 months of assignment implementation, e.g. covering (interim-) findings from the impact assessment of UNDP projects
2. One blog after 4 months of assignment implementation, e.g. covering (interim-) findings from the assessment of using lessons learned from UNDP projects for NDC implementation
3. One blog towards the end of the assignment to reflect on the overall results of the analysis

Summary of key tasks for the online webinar to present results:

1. Develop set up of webinar
2. Develop content of webinar
3. Invite (if needed) external presenter for webinar
4. Lead discussion during webinar

4.Deliverables and payments:

The Consultant will be responsible for producing the below deliverables. These deliverables are changeable subject to UNDP approval, in case unexpected incidents take place in the project, such as delay of the project or change of project scope, due to reasons uncontrollable by the Consultant.

1. A report presenting the results of the analysis, provisionally titled “Lessons learned from UNDP projects on Energy Efficiency in Buildings and potential for NDC implementation”
2. Three blogs, to be developed in collaboration with UNDP communication specialist, in relation to analysis findings
3. An online webinar to present the results of the analysis

Competencies

• Excellent team player with good interpersonal and communication skills;
• Ability to demonstrate sufficient technical knowledge to perform effectively and independently;
• Ability to manage workload with minimum supervision;
• Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
• Ability to accommodate additional demands on short notice;
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural environment;
• Skill in achieving results through persuading, influencing, and working with others;
• Skill in facilitating meetings effectively and efficiently and to resolve conflicts as they arise;
• Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high-ranking members of international, regional and national institutions;
• Displays sensitivity and adaptability to different cultures, genders, religions, races, nationalities, and age groups.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications and Requirements:

A.Education:

• Advanced degree (Masters level or higher) in environmental management, climate change mitigation, clean energy, engineering, environmental sciences, evaluation, or a related subject

B.Work Experience:

• Minimum 10 years of relevant professional experience working on climate change mitigation and energy projects;
• Technical knowledge and experience in the area of development projects on energy efficiency improvement in buildings
• Previous experience with impact assessment and/or quantifying (co-)benefits of climate mitigation projects;

C.Language:

• Fluency in English language is a Must.

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Potential interview questions

Added 5 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org