# Energy Efficiency Policies to Face Buildings' Climate Change Effects in Paraguay
## 3 Review of Paraguayan Actions
### The Road Toward EE in Paraguay
51 created the first Paraguayan standards for EE, which are focused on the labelling of equipment and appliances, such as air conditioners, low-energy lamps, fans, etc., aiming to guide manufacturers and consumers about the efficient use of electric energy. The CTN 55 has so far developed five technical standards for sustainable construction, which analyse different areas to define building standards aiming to achieve better EE; better indoor air quality, and better efficiency in the use of water and resources [45]: CTN 55-001-14 \"Site and Sustainable Architecture\" [46]; CTN 55-002-14 \"Material Resources\" [47]; CTN 55-003-15 \"Water efficiency\" [48]; CTN 55-004-16 \"Indoor environmental quality\" [49]; CTN 55-005-16 \"Energy and Atmosphere\" [50]. These standards were jointly created with the Paraguay Green Building Council, a non-profit entity founded in November 2012, aiming to promote policies and generate strategies to contribute to the country's sustainable development. Besides, it represents and promotes the international certifications of sustainable construction LEED, \"Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design\", in which there are four certification levels (certified, silver, gold and platinum) and different categories of credits. It is important to highlight that four years after the creation of this council, the country went from having only one building with sustainable certification in 2013 to six in 2016, which evidences the efforts of the council [51]. In 2014, the CNEE published the National Energy Efficiency Plan (Plan Nacional de Efficiencia Energetica, PNEE), where according to its general guidelines, the efficient use of energy represents the most effective measure to achieving reduced costs without altering the quality of life in households. It also highlights that its contribution to reducing costs and improving competitiveness in companies, avoids postponing significant investments in energy generation, and finally, helps to reduce environmental pollution [38; 52]. Considering this, some of the EE programs developed are focused on the construction of efficient stoves for firewood and charcoal, improving the efficiency of public transport, achieving the rural energisation with renewable sources and developing projects for rational and efficient energy use. This last includes promoting EE in public buildings and the creation of a prototype of an efficient social dwelling [39]. The PNEE defined guidelines and actions to incorporate the concept of \"Efficient use of energy\" into the country's energy sector, in which different specific objectives were defined (Table 1) and five main axes were established [38; 52]. In 2016, two years after the publication of the PNEE, a balance sheet of the situation of EE in Paraguay was made, where the progress achieved in the scope of the five axes of action outlined in the plan was presented. The challenges that the CNEE must overcome were also pointed out (Table 1) [42]. [PERSON] et al. [23] remarked about further progress regarding EE implemented in the country, as the change of the summer/winter time zone for the best use of sunlight, an action applied since the 1980s, and the differential tariffs charged during peak loading times, applied since the 1990s, aiming to reduce the peak load. Nevertheless, research was carried out to study the EE in 23 developing countries using a total-factor framework. This study positioned Paraguay among the 11 countries which display a downward trend in the EE total factor, which means that the EE total factor of Paraguay worsened between 1980 and 2005. Additionally, it highlighted that the Country was at the efficient production frontier in the first few years (with a high level of energy efficiency factor). Nonetheless, its factor became smaller in the later period, thus distancing itself from the efficient frontier over time [53]. Therefore, it is estimated that there will be no changes for several years in the energy matrix of Paraguay.