About the GlobalABC Adaptation Hub
The GlobalABC Adaptation Hub stands as a pivotal initiative dedicated to rallying stakeholders from both the public and private sectors across the buildings and construction value chain. With a primary focus on bolstering resilience and adaptation strategies, this collaborative endeavour seeks to unify expertise and resources to tackle the existing and increasingly urgent challenge posed by climate change-driven hazard events. Aligned with loss and damage and just transition efforts, the Adaptation Hub aims to foster innovative policy solutions that are tailored specifically to enhance resilience within the buildings and construction sector.
Data collected over the last decades shows that the climate is currently changing at an unprecedented pace due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, droughts, heavy precipitation and floods, and high-wind events, and particularly their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since 2007.
Despite ongoing decarbonization efforts, climate change is progressing and will have particularly severe consequences globally for built environments designed for stable conditions, as well as for the communities that inhabit them. Adapting our built environment to this evolving climate is crucial for the health and well-being of all, and for the continuity of economic activities worldwide. The Adaptation Hub fosters a deeper understanding of the necessity for resilience in the built environment, advocates for a shift from a historical perspective of natural risks to a projections-based model, and serves as a catalyst for concrete action worldwide.
Activities
The GlobalABC's Adaptation Working Group, now known as the Adaptation Hub, has been operational since 2018, bringing together members with a shared goal of advocating for a more resilient built environment through science-based and future-driven adaptation strategies. The Hub began its journey by emphasising the importance and numerous challenges of adaptation in the built environment in its foundational white paper, "Buildings and Climate Change Adaptation: A Call for Action," which was presented at COP26. Following this, the Adaptation Hub published its "10 Principles for Effective Actions" manifesto.
In 2022, the Hub concentrated on promoting these principles through case studies and began cataloguing and promoting existing frameworks and methodologies to assess and implement adaptive actions. These efforts culminated in a presentation at a COP27 side event.
Despite the well-documented consequences of climate change and the identification of effective adaptation levers by stakeholders across the buildings and construction value chain, the pace of adaptation has remained insufficient. To address this, the group published the "Why Are We Still Not Adapting?" white paper in 2024, following thorough research, interviews, and surveys, to identify the many intertwined causes for inaction. This critical work led to multiple events at COP28 and was introduced at the inaugural Buildings and Climate Global Forum, where the Hub played a significant role from the outset.
Currently, the Adaptation Hub is transitioning from a period of declarations and commitments to an era of concrete and tangible action. Our primary focus will be on developing comprehensive guidance for pursuing adaptation in the buildings and construction sector. This guidance will be structured as step-by-step pathways tailored for each stakeholder within the buildings and construction value chain. Emphasis will be placed on identifying and addressing cross-sectoral barriers, ensuring that the entire value chain progresses cohesively towards a more resilient built environment. Through these efforts, the Adaptation Hub intends to drive meaningful and unified progress in climate adaptation across the industry.
Adaptation Pathways
We are currently focused on developing comprehensive adaptation pathways that cover the entire buildings and construction value chain. Our objective is to provide actionable short, medium, and long-term strategies tailored for each of the 10 key stakeholder groups. These pathways are designed to enable every stakeholder to make impactful progress while facilitating further actions by others, ensuring a coordinated and seamless transition toward resilience.
Each pathway is carefully crafted to unlock progress throughout the value chain and to align with existing agreements like the Buildings Breakthrough and the Déclaration de Chaillot, and sectorial guidance like WBCSD's Market Transformation Agenda. The outcome will be a set of clear, actionable, and collaborative roadmaps for each stakeholder group, promoting sector-wide adaptation and resilience. By creating this unified framework, we aim to drive progress at both national and subnational levels, ensuring that all efforts contribute to a shared vision of a resilient future for buildings and construction.
Throughout 2024, we organized a series of sector-specific workshops involving all 10 stakeholder groups. These workshops have been instrumental in identifying key actions, recognizing barriers, and highlighting opportunities for synergies across the value chain. Our process involves pinpointing the necessary tasks for each stakeholder to advance their adaptation strategies and to enable other groups to take subsequent steps. This collaborative approach ensures that our pathways are grounded in the realities of the industry while fostering sector-wide progress.
We have already developed draft pathways for
- National Governments & Policy Makers (download);
- Financial Institutions, and Insurers (download);
- Architects and engineers (Designers) (download);
- Materials & systems manufacturers and suppliers (download),
which are currently open for consultation. In 2025, we will refine these initial pathways and develop an additional six, with the goal of having a fully operational framework by COP30. To achieve this, we seek partnerships with industry experts who can contribute to the selection of impactful actions, resources, and key performance indicators.
In 2025, we will host three key working sessions for our partners and champions:
- Brainstorm – A collaborative session to gather input and ideas for new pathways.
- Horizontal Integration – A cross-sectoral collaboration to ensure alignment and identify synergies.
- Review – A final session to refine each pathway for maximum impact.
We invite partners and champions to join us in completing this critical framework, preparing the sector for resilience and adaptation at COP30. Our goal is to have a robust, actionable framework ready, along with committed champions to drive engagement across the entire value chain.
2024-2025 commitments
The Adaptation Hub will provide expertise to the Buildings Breakthrough priority actions concerning their resilience part: in particular to convene a definition of climate change resilient buildings
Upcoming events
Join us at COP29 on November 16th from 13:00-14:30 at the Buildings and Cooling Pavilion (G10) for Adaptation is Everyone’s Business: Unlocking Key Initiatives Among Buildings & Construction Stakeholders—a hybrid working session to introduce our adaptation pathway framework, showcase progress on four pathways, and engage attendees in hands-on workshops to drive future initiatives, hosted by Adaptation Hub, ICC, USGBC, GCCA, and Velux.
