Since its launch at COP 26, the Breakthrough Agenda has become established as an annual collaborative process centred around the Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is currently supported by 59 countries representing over 80% of global GDP, and by over 100 initiatives working to enhance collaboration within major emitting sectors. Countries can endorse Breakthrough goals to make clean technologies and sustainable practices more affordable, accessible and attractive than their alternatives by 2030 in the power, road transport, hydrogen, steel, cement, buildings and agriculture sectors. This report covers six of the seven sectors, with agricultural covered in a separate report.

The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these goals, identify where further coordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

To initiate this cycle, world leaders tasked the IEA and the UN Climate Change High Level Champions to develop an annual Breakthrough Agenda report to provide an independent evidence base and expert recommendations for where stronger international collaboration is needed.

This document, the 2024 Breakthrough Agenda Report, is the third of these annual reports. It provides an assessment of progress against the recommendations made last year, updating recommendations for what more needs to be done.

This year's report includes the second edition of the Buildings Chapter, developed in collaboration with the GlobalABC. The chapter highlights progress in the built environment and calls on governments to strengthen collaboration, in five priority areas: standards & certification, demand creation,  finance & investment, research & deployment, capacity & skills– to accelerate decarbonisation and enhance resilience in buildings. 

Download the report here

The new Finnish Construction Act includes obligations concerning sustainable construction that stress carbon reduction and longevity of buildings. The latter contains a new essential technical requirement concerning the lifecycle performance of a building. The lifecycle performance comprises durability, adaptability and reusability. Thus they also have impacts on the use value and economic value of buildings.

The basic condition for the management of lifecycle performance is that in construction projects precise and verifiable requirements can be set for lifecycle performance. This in turn requires that the lifecycle performance and indicators for them have been defined. The Ministry of the Environment started an expert process in 2022 that aims to further specify the concepts related to lifecycle performance and present a summary and development proposals for the evaluation, planning and guidelines concerning lifecycle performance.

This report presents some of the content produced in the expert process and proposes that, after having been further specified, lifecycle performance should be more systematically incorporated into the procurements and guidance of construction. The report lays the foundation for a systematic approach to lifecycle planning and gives recommendations for further development opportunities related to the topic.

Download the report here

At the end of their service lives, building materials are either recovered (e.g., reused, recycled, incinerated) or disposed of in landfills. In life cycle assessment (LCA) terms, the environmental impacts due to material recovery or disposal are accounted for within the end-of-life (EOL) stage.

Through interviews, a survey, and a workshop, this research explores the functions that existing whole building LCA (WBLCA) tools offer to create models that can best represent EOL processes. This research further explores tool functionalities and data needs and provides recommendations and future research directions to improve EOL modeling in WBLCA tools.

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction (Buildings-GSR), a report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), provides an annual snapshot of the progress of the buildings and construction sector on a global scale. The Buildings-GSR reviews the status of policies, finance, technologies, and solutions to monitor whether the sector is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. It also provides stakeholders with evidence to persuade policymakers and the overall buildings and construction community to take action.

As outlined in the latest edition, the buildings and construction sector contributes significantly to global climate change, accounting for about 21 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, buildings were responsible for 34 per cent global energy demand and 37 per cent of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The 2022 update of the Global Buildings Climate Tracker (GBCT) paints a concerning picture: the gap between the current state and the desired decarbonisation path is significant. To align with the 2030 milestone, an annual increase of ten decarbonisation points is now required, a substantial jump from the six points anticipated per year starting in 2015.

This year, the deep dive chapters are the following: Adaptation and resilient construction methods; Innovations in business cases as well as Nature-based solutions and biophilic design.

Learn more and download the 2023 Buildings-GSR

Climate Target Setting for Real Estate Sector Financing’ is the first in a series of publications developed by members of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) with the goal of assisting banks by outlining the choices they make when setting climate-related targets for financing in particular sectors of the real economy. This includes key considerations in relation to the scope, portfolio metrics, data, and scenarios, emerging practices, common challenges and policy, data, and other gaps.

For many banks, the commitment they choose to make when joining NZBA requires them to set sectoral decarbonisation targets for their residential and commercial real estate financing. This publication is aimed at these banks in particular. It does not prescribe any particular methodology for banks to use or impose any requirements on NZBA member banks over and above the ones they chose to commit to when becoming a signatory.

Read the full report here.

Buildings are a sleeping giant for climate action. In 2021, buildings accounted for 37% of global energy- and process-related emissions (UNEP, 2022).  At the same time, buildings are particularly vulnerable to extreme climate events such as floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts, soil erosion, or wildfires. Climate-resilient buildings – promoting flexible design, passive cooling, nature-based solutions, local materials, or water conservation – are vital in achieving mitigation and adaptation objectives (Bourgault, Zinecker, & Mitra, 2021).

But climate action on buildings is lagging. Of the USD 5.8 trillion spent in the buildings and construction sector in 2019, only a fraction (2.6%) went towards building energy efficiency. Rising inflation rates have diverted the attention of many governments. In 2022, a modest 2% increase was estimated for investment in energy efficiency in buildings (UNEP, 2022).

To date, 194 countries have submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat. This report analysed these submissions, looking for buildings-related measures, and classified each of these measures along three categories: (1) Mitigation; (2) Adaptation; and (3) Cross-cutting measures. For each of these, this report created subcategories such as energy efficiency in design, building structure, or financing.

Going forward, this study finds out that an analysis and benchmarking of the NDCs on specific topics may help introduce an even more effective next generation of NDCs on buildings. At the same time, there is a need to quantify targets, and back them up with financing. The sheet of NDCs used for this analysis is available for further research and policy work.

Please read the full report here.

Revalu is a material data platform that enables to assess the impact across the design phase. It provides access to Europe’s largest EPD library and integrates 3rd party-verified data into existing workflows. It also offers climate insights, material innovation hub, and efficient documentation for ESG or LCA reporting. 

In the last 18 months, Revalu engaged with over 380 stakeholders across the industry to understand how they are addressing the current challenges of transitioning towards a more sustainable built environment and identified that the significant portion of the built environment's emissions stems from the choice of materials, with industry standards being notably polluting. Although alternatives exist, their environmental benefits are challenging to assess without clear data.

Furthermore, material data and sustainability resources are not uniformly available to everyone. Larger architectural firms can allocate resources to time-consuming explorations and collaborate with sustainability experts, whereas smaller firms and solo architects struggle to keep pace, resulting in a widening knowledge gap that hinders collective movement towards more conscious practices. 

Thus this material data platform is designed to empower all architects, regardless of firm size, with reliable data right at the design stage — where impactful decisions are made. 

Please try it out here.

In the quest to establish and enforce Passive House building codes that align with sustainability and energy efficiency goals, a comprehensive guide has been developed by The Passive Housing Network to shed light on the best practices in the implementation process. This report presents a roadmap for achieving the desired codes, emphasizing the critical need for market confidence, professional competence, and a robust supply chain to support their successful integration.

The findings of this research reveal a structured, four-step approach that, when executed in the proper sequence, can consistently bring Passive House building standards into practice:

• Alternate Pathways: Eliminate the hindrances created by the necessity of developing two distinct energy models. Advocate for the approval of Passive House models as an alternative compliance pathway.
• Passive House Incentives: Institute incentives aimed at bolstering industry capacity, expanding product supply chains, and reinforcing market confidence in Passive House construction.
• Add PH Reach & Stretch Codes: Introduce OPTIONAL reach or stretch codes for local jurisdictions, offering them the flexibility to adopt and implement these codes.
• Transform Baseline Codes: Once a substantial foundation of market confidence, professional competence, and a robust product supply chain is firmly established, revise the baseline codes to deliver desired Passive House outcomes.

It's worth noting that this process, from inception to completion, was successfully executed in Brussels within a span of just seven years. Additionally, Scotland is on the verge of accomplishing a similar feat. Massachusetts is following suit, with a strategic plan mirroring this trajectory. In cases where energy codes are locally governed, cities such as Denver find themselves in a favorable position to implement these steps ahead of state and national codes.

For more in-depth insights, practical examples, and a thorough breakdown of these four essential steps, we encourage you to delve into the full report. It offers a comprehensive guide for those committed to advancing Passive House building codes and fostering a more sustainable and energy-efficient future.

Please read the full briefing here.

Construction value chains, encompassing the construction and operation of buildings as well as the production of construction materials like cement and steel, contribute to approximately 40 percent of global CO2 emissions. This figure is expected to rise as developing economies, responsible for about two-thirds of these emissions, intensify construction activities for urbanization and development.

IFC is launching this report to guide international efforts to decarbonize construction value chains. Building Green: Sustainable Construction in Emerging Markets was prepared through close collaboration between IFC economists, investment officers, and building and construction sector specialists. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges of reducing carbon emissions from construction value chains in developing countries, but also the considerable opportunities that will come from mobilizing the estimated $1.5 trillion of investment required for this transition.

Read the full report here.

This report is part of a three-part series led by CCFLA to promote an understanding of financing barriers to net zero carbon buildings. This paper particularly focuses on Nigeria and assesses the current use of financial and policy instruments, and identifies how national, state, and local policy and regulatory frameworks can be improved to drive private and public investment in this sector. This report evaluates the current use of financial and policy instruments to identify ways to strengthen national, state, and municipal policy and regulatory frameworks to encourage private and public investment in this area.

The policy environment in Nigeria for net zero-carbon buildings is fragmented. While there is no overarching strategy or policy on net zero-carbon buildings, several relevant elements can be found in a variety of legislation.

While the 2017 National Building Energy Efficiency Code (BEEC) establishes minimum efficiency requirements for new structures, the 2021 National Climate Change Policy gives policy guidelines on building energy efficiency retrofitting.

Please read the full report here.