Improving health condition of Ulaanbaatar’s unplanned areas by building sustainable energy-efficient housing

Mongolia faces huge challenges. Around half of the population lives in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, using poor quality coal for heating. In fact, more than 90% of Mongolia’s energy still comes from coal. Low pressure coal boilers combined with poorly insulated homes are causing some of the worst air pollution in the world, 30 times the WHO limit, and 3 times higher than Beijing’s red alert levels.

The Switch Off Air Pollution Project (SOAP) was formulated to provide support to local governments and other organizations and private households, such as the construction industry and SMEs in the ger district. The project’s target group is ger district households and small business that wish to decrease heating expenses and improve overall comfort of the house, and further focus will lie in households below living standards and female headed households.

The Ger District extends endelessly outside the skirts of the capital citiy Ulaanbaatar. The use of coal and disposed tires for heating is accelerating the degradation of air quality.

The project was funded by the European Commission within the “Asia SWITCH Asia II – Promoting Sustainable Consumption and Production” programme with the following objectives:

• Defining climate technological options for a scale-up of SOAP, with social, economic and environmental impacts.
• Exploring with the local financial system and private bank, different avenues for climate financing.
• Develop scenarios broadening the project.​
• Diversification of energy efficiency products offered by SOAP.​
• Involve more actors and companies.​
• Find new economic strategies and possibilities for financing the project​
• Look for sustained long-term financing possibilities.​
• Preparing a handover strategy.​