The seminar was attended by building designers, architects, construction and maintenance specialists, representatives of academia, research institutions and NGOs.

Because of outdated building design and structure, inefficient internal heating and ventilation systems, public buildings are characterized by high energy consumption and high operation and maintenance costs. At present, existing building codes in Uzbekistan do not include mandatory energy efficiency requirements, therefore need to be revised, which will also contribute to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The seminar introduced the major objectives of the project such as revision of building codes, promotion of integrated building design approach, relevant institutional and capacity building activities, and transfer of best practices, transfer of emerging low-carbon, energy efficient and renewable energy technologies and equipment. International experts provided information and international best practices on building codes and their contribution to energy efficiency. The success stories from implementation of these practices were presented during the seminar.

Participants were familiarized with building certification and audit followed by the discussion on perspectives of introduction and implementation of building codes in public buildings in Uzbekistan.

The initial part of the seminar was finalized by development of a road map on new thermal insulation standards. Introduction of enforcement of energy efficient standards is closely linked to energy audits, therefore seminar also covered approaches on control of energy consumption and green house gas emissions in buildings. Moreover, notion of "energy managers", or people ensuring operation and maintenance of public buildings with reduced energy consumption, was introduced.

At the end of the seminar, participants discussed the national best-practices and potential areas for improvements, as well as project pilot sites where the proposed innovative approaches can be demonstrated. In view of the global importance of the energy efficiency issue in conditions of the changing climate, the seminar served not only for theoretic knowledge uptake but also exchange of practical experiences, awareness raising, capacity development contributing to promoting energy efficiency and energy saving to tackle the global climate change challenge.