Environmental targets for the construction sector have become ever more stringent. Many stakeholders on both the supply and demand sides are increasingly calling for accessible and reliable data and information on buildings. Policymakers and market participants alike see the development and use of Building Passports as a way of overcoming current data gaps and data barriers, helping to capture, administer and manage building-related data and information across the whole life cycle. The overarching goals of these practical guidelines, which represent the collaborative effort of a global Task Force of public and private sector experts, are to illustrate the value of developing holistic, multi-dimensional Building Passports. At the same time, the guidelines reflect key aspects of past discussions about how to make them work in practice, drawing on the experiences of stakeholders and on existing and emerging similar-type initiatives. As such, these guidelines are a supporting tool that:

- explain the approach of a Building Passport for a more systematic and coherent approach to building-related data and information.

- help build capacity for improved data capture and management through practical recommendations and real-life examples of good practice.

- ensure a minimum of harmonization / standardization.

- foster more widespread market transformation through progressive digitization of building-related data and information, thus creating greater overall sectoral transparency and opportunities for the development of new business models and tools.

The report will be available to download soon.

The GlobalABC is co-lead of the Built Environment Track of the Human Settlements Pathway!

The Human Settlements are one of the Thematic Areas of the Climate Action Pathways, which are a vital part of the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action (MPGCA) tools to enhance climate action and ambition towards fully implementing the Paris Agreement. The Pathways aim to provide a roadmap to help Parties and non-Party stakeholders alike to identify actions needed by 2025, 2030 and 2040 as steps to get to the 2050 vision of a 1.5°C resilient world. In this regard, the climate action pathway for human settlements addresses whole-life carbon mitigation, adaptation and resilience in the built environment, as well as waste and consumption within human settlements.

Restricting climate change to 1.5°C would need “rapid and far-reaching” changes around energy use, industry and buildings design, as well as the wider planning of cities and infrastructure. The buildings and construction sector currently account for almost 40% of global energy and process-related carbon emissions, while around half of buildings that are predicted to exist in 2050 have yet to be built. Continuing in this direction, over 970 cities could be subjected to extreme heat, 500 cities could suffer from lack of water availability, and over 570 cities could be impacted by sea level rise by 2050. If action is not taken today, we risk locking emissions and vulnerability into our buildings and infrastructure that will become increasingly costly to mitigate in the future. Based on this critical observation, the built environment track of the Human Settlements climate action pathway outlines a set of necessary stakeholder (i.e. policy makers, financial institutions, technology providers and innovators, business and service providers and civil society) actions to be taken to accelerate the transition to a net-zero carbon, healthy and resilient built environment.

UNECE has developed three in-depth national studies for Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and the Republic of Moldova under the project “Enhancing National Capacities to Develop and Implement Energy Efficiency Standards for Buildings in the UNECE Region”, which aims to enhance capacity of the UNECE member States to improve energy efficiency in buildings, with a focus on residential buildings. More information on UNECE helps Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and the Republic of Moldova scale up cost-effective climate action by improving buildings’ energy efficiency 

The EU’s initiatives on Sustainable Finance will have an impact on the buildings sector. PEEB is closely monitoring the ongoing EU sustainable finance agenda and published two publications to support actors in the buildings sector in understanding their impact on buildings: a briefing on the EU taxonomy and a background paper on the opportunities for EU sustainable finance in external action.

The EU taxonomy briefing explains this initiative and its impact on the building sector. As a classification system for economic activities that can be considered environmentally sustainable, the EU taxonomy can have a profound impact on financing decisions. Following the enacting of this regulation through the EU and its member states, only investments that comply with technical screening criteria can be communicated as “sustainable”.

The background paper on EU Sustainable Finance in external action analyses the EU’s important role in global financial flows and the EU’s recent sustainable finance initiatives, and the potential to influence the massive sustainable finance challenge for buildings. It finds that the EU is in an excellent position to promote investment projects and national investment frameworks for sustainable and Paris aligned activities in partner countries and gives recommendations to enhance this.

Hospitals are large consumers of energy. This guide for the Tunisian hospital sector gives concrete recommendations to energy managers and architects. It covers areas such as the orientation of waiting areas and patient rooms, energy efficiency and management of different hospital installations, and the integration of renewable energy sources to provide a safe and secure power supply for its day-to-day functioning.

The guide was developed by the Tunisian Ministry of Health and the Tunisian Energy Management Agency (ANME), with the Programme for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (PEEB)

A large part of the construction sector’s emissions come from building products and materials – referred to as embodied carbon. Embodied carbon is increasingly becoming the focus of regulatory bodies, making it a risk factor for developers and investors to price into construction projects.

This report provides guidance on how to reduce embodied carbon in buildings. The report targets developers and investors who have a unique opportunity to shape demand and drive transformation at the early stages of building projects. By doing so, they can significantly reduce the “financed” emissions across different asset classes they are invested in.

The report provides over 50 embodied carbon-reduction policies and best practices that investors and developers can adopt for their projects and guidance on how to use them. We have grouped each measure into one of the following five categories.

• Create a carbon policy that sets out consistent requirements for all projects to follow.
• Set targets and transparency requirements for projects to meet across all their phases.
• Prioritize circularity – that is, less new building and more reuse and refurbishment.
• Design optimization to use less material and to choose materials with a low carbon footprint.
• Low-carbon procurement to ensure acquisition of materials with a low carbon footprint.

Developers and investors can use the guidance as it stands or adapt it to their needs. The measures and requirements are flexible and can easily be combined with different green building certifications or sustainability reporting systems.

This report looks in detail at the results of six whole life cycle assessment (WLCA) case studies to illustrate some of the challenges, barriers and opportunities relating to the building industry’s carbon footprint. It aims to provide an insight into the industry’s current performance and compare it to possible net-zero trajectories.

Analyzing the whole life carbon emissions of six building projects using the WBCSD Building System Carbon Framework, the report shows that:

• An average whole life carbon footprint of 1,800 kgCO2e/m2 was estimated across the six case studies.
• As much as 50% of whole life carbon emissions in a building comes from embodied carbon (manufacturing of materials and the construction process) the majority of this being emitted immediately at the start of the life cycle.
• Typically as few as six materials account for 70% of the construction-related embodied carbon.

The report identifies crucial next steps to support the sector’s journey toward decarbonization:

• Adopt a clear definition of a net-zero building, taking into account whole life-cycle carbon.
• Carry out WLCA on all projects, using a consistent methodology and open-source sharing of the data obtained.
• Commit to clear, simple global targets across the buildings industry, including a valid approach to residual emissions (offsetting).
• Develop consistent and transparent carbon intensity certification for components, systems and materials used by the industry.
• Achieve wider collaboration as individual organizations taking action is not enough.

WBCSD developed this report in collaboration with professional service firm Arup. The authors encourage stakeholders from across the built environment to conduct whole-life carbon assessments of their projects and openly publish the results to create a body of evidence and foster shared learning.

This practical guide demonstrates how buildings and community spaces can be constructed to increase their resilience to climate change, especially in developing countries where structures are largely self-built. The publication provides an overview of the fundamental types of interventions at the building scale, including the use of nature-based solutions. 

The guide offers construction solutions to adapt to a range of different risks in various climates. For instance, it shows us how to reduce indoor heat in hot and arid climates, or how to mitigate cyclone impacts on buildings in hot and humid climates. Importantly, the report also provides us with a highly practical checklist that should be considered by government officers and development practitioners when undertaking a new building project. 

The guidance has been developed because there is a recognized need to understand good practices for climate-resilient buildings in communities that may suffer from a deficit of professionally trained architects, engineers, and other practitioners. Therefore, this note is written for a broad audience, including those with little experience in the building and construction industries.

This publication aims to inspire senior officials and decision makers in national, subnational and local governments to decarbonize the building sector, and to show them how to start. It does not present a comprehensive strategy, but rather highlights a set of essential measures and successful examples from intervention areas identified in the GlobalABC Regional Roadmaps – new buildings, existing buildings, building operations, building materials, and resilience. It assists officials and decision makers in identifying a starting point of a process for systematically incorporating building activities in their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. For a holistic approach, senior officials and decision makers may refer to the more comprehensive GlobalABC Global and Regional Roadmaps.

Le rafraîchissement urbain est un sujet récent et les connaissances produites par la recherche et les premières expérimentations donnent des résultats divers, parfois difficiles à décrypter pour les acteurs opérationnels.
Ce guide propose une approche synthétique, multicritères et opérationnelle des solutions émergentes ou éprouvées, adaptées à différents contextes climatiques et urbains. Il s’agit d’éclairer la décision des acteurs publics et privés, tant sur leurs choix d’aménagement, de construction, de rénovation des bâtiments que d’aménagement des espaces extérieurs.

Téléchargez la synthèse du guide ici!