There are many industries that need to decarbonize in order for net zero to be reached, yet few are as important as the building sector. When we talk about the building sector, we refer to both the construction of buildings (the construction industry) and the energy use of buildings (the built environment).
With an estimated 6.7 billion people projected to live in urban areas by 2050 (compared to 4.7 billion now), it is clear that changes will need to be made if the sector’s climate targets are to be met. Indeed, concrete is the most widely used man-made resource on the planet, second only to water as the most used resource. In Europe, the construction sector is responsible for more than 35 per cent of Europe’s total waste generation.
Speaking at the Bonn Climate Conference side-event on the building industry, Stéphane Crouzat, French Climate Ambassador made clear the scale of the challenge. “21 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions are [from] the building sector, so it is absolutely essential that we concentrate our minds on addressing these emissions,” he said.
Another issue is energy efficient buildings, which “reduces energy demand – as the old saying goes, the cheapest energy is the one that is not consumed,” Crouzat said. “Energy in the building sector is the second most commonly cited policy in Nationally Determined Contributions,” he added.
However, in order to achieve climate neutrality globally, there needs to be a decarbonization of building materials. As the World Green Building Council points out, this includes what is termed as ‘embodied carbon’ when assessed at a building level: “the emissions associated with the production, transportation and disposal of building materials and the construction process itself.”
The side-event also saw a focus on the recently published UNFCCC Buildings Monitoring Compendium which supports developing countries in enhancing their knowledge on sectoral greenhouse gas emissions, emissions reduction target-setting and the design of mitigation and adaptation policies and measures to mitigate climate change and enhance resilience.
Oliver Rafp, Executive Director of Building Performance Institute Europe and one of the compendium’s authors, spoke about the role of the guide.
“The compendium is a very practical tool for policymakers and politicians to develop mitigation strategies and strategies of how to monitor progress and how to collect data, in order to support NDCs and the Enhanced Transparency Framework,” he said.
“There are still a lot of people on this planet who do not have access to decent housing,” he added. “So, of course, the building surface will have to grow. Globally, the question is how can we make sure that this does not hinder us from achieving the Paris Agreement?”
Nora Steurer, Program Officer at the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction echoed these words and pointed out both the huge challenge and opportunities in the sector. “We estimate that the floor space equivalent to the size of Paris is built every five days, and that half of the buildings that will be standing in 2050 have not yet been built,” she said.
Yet, the scale of the industry results in a huge opportunity too. “This sector is one of the most cost-effective mitigation areas of any industrial sector and has massive co-benefits including job creation, improved air quality and improved climate resilience,” she added.
The Global Alliance’s vision includes “halving the built environment’s emissions by 2030, and ensuring 100 per cent of new buildings must be net-zero carbon in operation,” Steurer said.
Steurer is optimistic that the required change can happen and points out the positive changes in the building industry between the Paris Agreement in 2015 and 2020. Despite the global floor area of buildings increasing by nearly 10 per cent in that time, emissions intensity has fallen by 17 per cent, while the number of countries with building energy codes has risen by 30 per cent from 62 to 81. “
“Building energy codes are a very important pillar to push the market forward,” Steurer says, “and we can see how the number of building energy codes differs by region. In the Middle East and North Africa, we are at 44 per cent, and there enforcement is a bigger issue, while in Africa we are at 9 per cent, and in Africa we are looking at massive construction growth in the next decade, so [building codes] are very important.”
This tempered optimism was shared by Rapf: “The good news is here that we have a certain degree of decoupling between the growth of surface and the growth of energy consumption and emissions,” he said.
All agreed that the issue is hugely complex, particularly around where the industry’s emissions are coming from. “As we have seen, 37 per cent of global CO2 emissions related to energy come from the sector,” Rapf said. “But when we look at a more detailed picture, we see that about 10 per cent comes from the production of building materials such as cement, steel, glass and bricks. And we need to look at how much of the emissions are direct, and how much are indirect [such as from transporting materials]. This is why it is so important to actually get the accounting right, the accounting of emissions sources.”
The panelists were clear that for the required emissions cuts to be made, international co-operation, and sharing of best practices is vital. Indeed, the publication of the compendium – the work of a think tank, the UNFCCC and the German Agency for International Cooperation – showcases the fact that co-operation is needed for this issue to be tackled properly. The construction industry may be a huge contributor to emissions, but that just means that there is an equally huge opportunity to make real progress both before and after COP27.