As the world works toward the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, the buildings and construction sector stands at a critical intersection of climate action, sustainable development, and urban resilience.

This first report from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) Subnationals Action Group focuses on the importance of localizing climate action. It highlights how subnational governments, in collaboration with national authorities, the private sector, and civil society, can drive meaningful change by integrating sustainability, resilience, and circularity into building policies and practices.

With more than half of the global population living in urban areas—and this figure expected to rise—the report examines how cities and local governments are well-positioned to implement climate-responsive solutions. It explores opportunities for multilevel governance, sectoral linkages, and inclusive planning, offering examples and recommendations to support a just and equitable transition.

The report also underscores the need for investment and innovation to scale up efforts, reduce emissions across the building life cycle, and ensure access to safe, affordable, and sustainable housing. It calls for a holistic, people-centered approach to decarbonization and resilience in the built environment—grounded in informed choices, coordinated action, and strong partnerships.

The 2024 Building and Climate Global Forum Report serves as a valuable resource for reflection and action in the field of buildings and climate. This major event brought together over 1,500 participants from more than 70 countries, fostering dialogue among international experts, government representatives, and private sector leaders.

With a strong focus on innovation, research, and education, the report captures key insights from the plenary and parallel sessions. A dedicated team of experts, students, and alumni contributed to summarizing discussions, ensuring the dissemination of critical knowledge on sustainable development challenges in the built environment.

This initiative was made possible through the collaboration of ADEME (The French Agency for Ecological Transition), École nationale des ponts et chaussées and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), and the commitment of nearly 50 rapporteurs, whose contributions played a crucial role in the success of this project. The report stands as a testament to collective efforts in advancing sustainable solutions for the buildings and construction sector.

The Building Market Brief - India provides a comprehensive analysis of India’s rapidly transforming building and construction sector, driven by population growth, urbanization, and evolving consumer preferences. Developed under the Digital Building Passports project, this report is a collaborative effort by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the CUES Foundation (Netherlands), and OFFSETFARM, with support from Mahindra Lifespace Developers and funding from the German Ministry of Development Cooperation (BMZ).

As part of the UN Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) Data Hub, the report offers critical insights into India’s building sector, highlighting key challenges such as housing shortages, high material consumption, and environmental impacts. The sector accounts for 38% of annual primary energy use, 31% of electricity consumption, and 32% of national GHG emissions, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable construction solutions.

The study also explores policy initiatives alongside technological advancements in low-carbon materials and construction techniques. A key component of the project is the Digital Building Passport app (CAPSA), which enables automated embodied carbon calculations and assesses the carbon mitigation potential of best-practice materials.

With India’s real estate market projected to grow significantly, this report provides valuable data and strategies for industry stakeholders, policymakers, and sustainability advocates to support the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient built environment.

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction (Buildings-GSR), 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.

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2024-2025 - Not just another brick in the wall highlights progress made on related global climate goals and calls for greater ambition on six challenges, including building energy codes, renewable energy, and financing. Global frameworks and initiatives such as Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate, the Buildings Breakthrough and the Declaration de Chaillot are sustaining momentum towards adopting ambitious climate action plans, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), for net-zero buildings ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil.

Despite this progress, the sector remains a key driver of the climate crisis, consuming 32 per cent of global energy and contributing to 34 per cent of global CO2 emissions. The sector is dependent on materials like cement and steel that are responsible for 18% of global emissions and are a major source of construction waste.

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This study, conducted by the engineering, architecture and consultancy firm, Ramboll, in collaboration with leading European researchers from AAU Built and KU Leuven, and funded by Laudes Foundation, puts forward a framework for assessing and monitoring embodied emissions at the building level and a recommended benchmarking process related to European Member States’ carbon budgets.

Climate Action Roadmaps for Buildings and Construction Bangladesh has been launched by the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, on 7 October.

This roadmap follows the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) framework, developed through a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). It emphasizes reducing emissions and improving resilience across the entire life cycle of buildings, and sets ambitious short-, medium-, and long-term targets for decarbonizing the built environment, aligned with the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action. The roadmap is centred around four main cross-cutting objectives: (1) zero embodied carbon; (2) zero operational carbon; (3) adaptation; and (4) well-being and inclusion.

Download the roadmap below

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

Buildings and construction not only contribute to climate change, but are also vulnerable to its impacts, whether it’s hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise, and heatwaves. With more frequent and severe climate-related events, the world must adopt climate-resilient building practices to reduce vulnerabilities, particularly in areas experiencing rapid urban growth.

Read the Building and Construction Fact Sheet (UNEP Sectoral Solution to Climate Change) to learn more.

This guidance is primarily aimed at public procurers involved in a range of contracting agreements related to building materials and products. This includes the purchase of building materials for construction works, but may also extend to material extraction, manufacturing, building, retrofit, refurbishment, design, interior fit out, and end-of-life demolition or deconstruction processes. 

There are a variety of roles within the procurement cycle that the guidance can support, from commissioning, category management, tender preparation and evaluation, to contract management.