On June 22, Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO of the US Green Building Council, the body responsible for LEED Certification, made his first visit to Chile, invited by Inmobiliaria Las Salinas, to participate in activities in Santiago and Viña del Mar. In these meetings, the highest authority of the USGBC addressed the benefits generated by sustainable urban development projects, the experience of other countries and the challenges we face in this area, from the perspective of Viña del Mar and also at a national level. First, Ramanujam participated in the executive breakfast “Greenbuilding Economics in Chile: Opportunities and Challenges”, held in Santiago and aimed at representatives of the real estate, financial and construction sectors. On the occasion, he stressed that “large-scale projects can never be executed in isolation, they can only be carried out with a strong partnership and collaboration between governments, the private world and community leaders”. The event also featured presentations by Juan Andrés Camus, president of the Santiago Stock Exchange, and Marcos Kulka, general manager of Fundación Chile. The three speakers then joined in a panel forum to discuss the benefits of eco-efficiency and the future of green urban development in Chile and the world. In his intervention, the Minister of Environment, Marcelo Mena, referred to government initiatives in southern Chile on energy efficiency issues, highlighting the need to diversify the matrix through non-conventional renewable energies for universal access. After breakfast, Mahesh Ramanujam went to the city of Viña del Mar to visit the Las Salinas site and, in the afternoon, to lead the meeting “Viña del Mar: Sustainable Capital of Chile”, which brought together representatives from the academic, business, trade union and citizen world of the Garden City. At the event, Ramanujam highlighted the value that represents, from the perspective of sustainability, the urban project of Inmobiliaria Las Salinas, which seeks to convert a land with an industrial past -or brownfield- into a “green community”; a model of sustainable development that constitutes, in his opinion, an example for the rest of the world. This activity also included the participation of Luis Valenzuela, director of the Territorial Intelligence Center of the Adolfo Ibáñez University; Pablo Rodríguez, director of the Urban Advisory Department of the Municipality of Viña del Mar; and Waldo Ceballos, director of the Department of Environmental Services of the Municipality of Viña del Mar, who analyzed in a panel discussion with Ramanujam, the potentials and challenges facing the Garden City in terms of sustainability.
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