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.

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.