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2023-07-31 | Metabolic
Metabolic

How does the large-scale application of biobased construction materials impact our forests? Are we not shifting the burden to another planetary boundary if we focus on the reduction of carbon emissions?

This report from Metabolic is a first step in a longer-term exploration to create clarity on these important issues.

This report delves into the current environmental impact of the construction sector in the EU27+UK; the potential scenarios to reduce the impact of the sector by applying timber alternatives to carbon-intensive materials; the implications that this increased demand for timber has on European forests, and what systemic barriers need to be taken into consideration during the planning and development processes.

Please read the full report here.

 
2023-10-05 | Andreas Beavor, UrbanEmerge; Samia Khan, UrbanEmerge; Dr Naji Makarem, UrbanEmerge; Benneth Obinna Obasiohia, UrbanEmerge; Nnanna Joemartins Oketa, UrbanEmerge; Pedro de Aragão Fernandes, Climate Policy Initiative
The Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance

This report is part of a three-part series led by CCFLA to promote an understanding of financing barriers to net zero carbon buildingsThis 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.

 
2023-09-20 | European Labour Authority(ELA)
European Labour Authority(ELA)

ELA published today a report concerning information provision, enforcement, social security coordination and cooperation between Member States in relation to posting of workers in the construction sector. The study, which findings are presented in the report, was conducted between October 2022 and May 2023.

The study shows that the most prevalent violations and abusive practices include the establishment of letterbox companies, non-compliance with working conditions, bogus self-employment, fraudulent PD A1 (Portable Document A1) usage and fraudulent posting of third country nationals. Labour inspectorates can inspect and sanction these violations and abusive practices, but they often lack sufficient financial and staff resources, and experience difficulties in identifying some factual elements in such posting contexts (e.g. place of registration of undertakings, number of contracts performed, whether or not the posted workers return to or are expected to resume working in the sending Member State) to properly carry out their inspection activities. Furthermore, imposition of sanctions and their effective implementation can be difficult in a cross-border situation.

The report identified several measures that could prevent non-compliance with the rules. These include the provision of social ID cards to posted workers, subcontracting chain liability schemes to make it possible to identify the actors in those chains, limitations on subcontracting and specific public procurement rules.

Please find more information here.

 
| Bauhaus Earth; Toni Piëch Foundation
Bauhaus Earth

 

Bauhaus Earth is collaborating with the Toni Piëch Foundation to develop the multi-series knowledge collection 'Building for the Future'. Developed as a modular system, the collection will provide visually appealing and easily digestible information to introduce people to the idea of a regenerative built environment. It will provide an overview of key developments, concepts, and options for action. The first series, 'Setting the Frame', highlights critical facts and figures about the built environment as a major contributor to the climate crisis. It also highlights the vision of a regenerative built environment and presents practical ideas and approaches. The second series will focus specifically on the scale of regenerative buildings, highlighting the use of bio-based materials and how to extend the life cycle of building materials and components, as well as the importance of sufficiency strategies.

The first Series "Setting the Frame" highlights critical facts and figures about the built environment as a major contributor to the climate crisis. It also highlights the vision of a regenerative built environment and presents practical ideas and approaches. The second series “Regenerative Buildings” will focus specifically on the scale of regenerative buildings, emphasizing the use of bio-based materials and how to extend the life cycle of building materials and components.

 
2023-07-14 | Centre for Science and Environment
Centre for Science and Environment

The Cooling Web is a guidance document and a compilation of case studies that bring out a range of cooling solutions that are diverse and comprehensive and do not rely on conventional energy-guzzling practices. This involves measures to enhance microclimate, thoughtful designs for building envelopes, judicious selection of material, and context-specific cooling approaches.

India is witnessing rising frequency and intensity of heat waves. This is making our cities sear and pushing the built environment community to rethink how to plan and design buildings and cities. This momentum is strongly linked with the India Cooling Action Plan 2019 and its very important goal of thermal comfort for all. The Union government and a few state governments are taking strides to achieve this goal by developing thermal comfort standards and action plans, adopting energy conservation building codes, and other initiatives like cool roof programmes. However, the degree of success lies in the scaled-up implementation of cooling strategies.

The 10 case studies in the volume 1 carefully selected from across the country—with five deep dives—highlight how thermal comfort can be achieved by a combination of passive and active cooling measures. This approach reduces cooling energy demand tremendously and addresses cooling equity. These solutions blend traditional wisdom on passive design with modern techniques and provide optimized solutions so that energy consumption is minimized. These solutions are also a guide toward achieving a rational and climate-appropriate cooling ecosystem that not only ensures resource efficiency but also maintains thermal comfort for building occupants.

Please read the report here.

2023-01-17 | DCMP Initiative
DCMP Initiative

The Digital Construction Material Passport (DCMP) is a groundbreaking tool designed to enhance transparency and sustainability in the construction industry. Much like food products require detailed ingredient information, construction materials also deserve comprehensive data to support informed decision-making.

A material passport serves as a declaration of a construction product's essential information, such as its composition, production chemistry, and potential for sustainable construction. This passport is supplied by the manufacturer and accompanies the product through the supply chain. Material passports contain data on chemical content, resource potential, and the product's operational and environmental impact. While some environmental indicators are found in Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), material passports cover other vital information for construction processes.

Material passports and building passports are related but distinct concepts. Material passports provide product-specific data, while building passports include project-specific information like renovations. Material passports are a prerequisite for building passports.

The DCMP is an open-source free communication format for safely communicating detailed information about construction products, i.e. an electronic material passport specifically for construction products. It can contain information about ingredients, chemistry used in production and the products ability to be part of circular/sustainable construction as well as future resource flows. The data format is based on XML and is free to implement by anyone. To encourage its usage there is also a free editor available to create, read, and update files in this format.

Please find more information here

 
| Global Cement and Concrete Association
Global Cement and Concrete Association

The cement and concrete sector is fully committed to achieving significant sustainability progress. The GCCA gathers key data recording the industry’s sustainability commitments. The GNR (“Getting the Numbers Right” or “GCCA in NumbeRs”) is a key tool in how key sustainability progress is monitored and reported.

The GNR database is now managed by the GCCA(Global Cement and Concrete Association), having transferred at the end of 2019 from the Cement Sustainability Initiative (an initiative run through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development). Data are collected according to the CO₂ and Energy Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Cement Industry.

To access the CO₂ and Energy Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Cement Industry Excel Spreadsheet and Internet Manual, in English or Chinese use following links: Excel Spreadsheet and Internet Manual, in English or Chinese use the following links:

The GNR database is open and transparent to interested parties. This year GNR is migrated to a new, user-friendly platform. To support interested parties to use and interpret the comprehensive data, GCCA now provides detailed data and regional data on demand via the GNR Project Management Committee. This will also enable the provision of more tailored solutions to enquiries. 

Data is available for: 1990, 2000, and 2005 to 2021. The regions and countries for which data are available are listed here in accordance with anti-trust law and confidentiality requirements. The list of parameters and indicators available is available here.

2021-01-05 | Global Cement and Concrete Association
Global Cement and Concrete Association

The Cement CO2 Protocol stands as a pivotal guidance document for calculating carbon emissions in cement manufacturing and enjoys widespread adoption worldwide. Cement manufacturers globally rely on this standard for consistent measurement and management of carbon emissions.

Additionally, the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) maintains an extensive database aligned with this protocol, making it one of the most comprehensive resources for CO2 emissions data in the cement industry. This combined effort underscores the protocol's significance and its substantial impact on carbon reduction initiatives across the sector.

Explore further at https://www.cement-co2-protocol.org/en/.

 
2022-05-17 | LMN Architects
LMN Architects

The Path To Zero Carbon Series explores research and solutions for one of the most significant challenges of the 21st century.  Addressing the climate crisis requires the buildings industry to reach carbon neutral design and construction across all projects. The building industry is responsible for roughly half of global warming, and the actions to reduce these emissions have a massive impact. With help from many collaborators, LMN Architechts launched this series to research, summarize, and prioritize the most important actions we can take across all emissions sources on projects within the built environment.

The team has organized the series into 4 sections:

  • Framing the Challenge considers our overall impact on our environment, resilience, and equity; our responsibility for these impacts and how they impact our clients carbon emissions disclosures; and the expanding scope of carbon emissions beyond just energy and structural embodied carbon.
  • Fundamentals posts cover the science, policy, and basic research that provides context for climate action, including how greenhouse gases warm the planet, the time value of carbon, how the electricity grid is transforming, and the challenges of understanding and procuring carbon offsets.
  • Exploring Carbon provides research on building-scale tools, methods, and strategies to understand and reduce emissions, from whole-building reuse to emerging research on embodied carbon and the circular economy.
  • Conclusions + Process wraps up the series, including revising LMN’s Sustainable Action Plan and strategizing a process to reduce and then eliminate emissions across our projects.

The series is an honest exploration of a very near-term and critical challenge, in the spirit of failing forward, enabled by a culture of sharing among sustainability professionals. Goals include identifying resources and robust tools to calculate and reduce carbon emissions where they exist; to provide actionable methods where tools do not exist; and to provide questions and links to studies where no tools or methods exist.

Please read the full report here.

2023-09-12
WBCSD

WBCSD’s Roadmap to Nature Positive: Foundations for the built environment system is a step-by-step guidance with supporting material developed through extensive engagement with 8 companies, and Arcadis as lead consultant. 

This guidance identifies five subsystems to describe the different characteristics of the built environment system: buildings, urban infrastructure, transport infrastructure, marine and coastal infrastructure, and a crosscutting subsystem covering upstream mining and extraction activities. 

Download the roadmap