Accra, Ghana—IFC and Reall today announced the first affordable housing project to achieve IFC’s Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) green building standard in northern Ghana, a region particularly affected by climate change.
Reall, a UK-based development organization supporting affordable homes in Africa and Asia, partnered with Ghana’s Afreh Group to construct 100 eco-friendly, two-bedroom units in the Lahagu suburb of Tamale, the capital of Ghana’s Northern Region.
The construction was completed in July 2021.
The units feature low-flow water fittings, walls built with compressed earth blocks, and naturally ventilated spaces, reducing electricity and water use by a third for residents, compared with other buildings in the region.
The manufacturing process for the sustainable materials consumed less than 50 percent of the normal energy used to manufacture and install more widely used construction materials.
“Reall and Afreh Group have combined best practice construction methods from the UK and Ghana to deliver a product that is affordable, climate-smart, and attractive to the Ghanaian customer.
We hope this will show other developers in northern Ghana that homes that are climate-smart can also be affordable,” Tom Woodward, Reall’s Climate Lead said.
“IFC’s EDGE continues to drive green building in Ghana,” said Kyle Kelhofer, IFC’s Senior Country Manager for Ghana.
“The certification of this project is particularly important as it caters to the region’s lower income groups, as well as addressing the area’s higher vulnerability to climate change because of water scarcity and increasing environmental degradation.”
IFC’s EDGE program was launched in 2014 to support the construction of green buildings and help fight climate change. The program is active in 170 countries.
In Ghana, EDGE has certified 14 large buildings since 2017 in the health, hospitality, retail, and financial sectors, and is encouraging developers to adopt green building techniques.
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