Policy challenge
The Hub provides resources to support policymakers across the world to transform the construction industry in line with the Paris Agreement, the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, the New Urban Agenda, and the Buildings Breakthrough target.
The built environment sector has the potential to achieve rapid decarbonization by supporting various stakeholders across the entire life cycle of materials, including international supply chains. To optimize building material decarbonization, specific policies should be tailored to the context. Six key strategies are essential for decarbonization: setting higher building code standards, legislating circularity throughout the life cycle, promoting the use of low-carbon, bio-based materials, improving access to data and life-cycle analysis, addressing gender imbalances in the built environment, and demonstrating public sector leadership in finance and procurement.
More specifically, as laid out in the UNFCCC-MPGCA Human Settlements Climate Action Pathway, which aims to guide and drive implementation of the Paris Agreement, two goals for decarbonisation of buildings are in place that the Hub aims to support:
Near-term
By 2030, the built environment should halve its emissions, whereby 100 per cent of new buildings must be net-zero carbon in operation, with widespread energy efficiency retrofit of existing assets well underway, and embodied carbon must be reduced by at least 40 per cent, with leading projects achieving at least 50 per cent reductions in embodied carbon.
Long-term
By 2050 at the latest, all new and existing assets must be net zero across the whole lifecycle, including operational and embodied emissions.
Various policies have been proposed and implemented in some countries to speed this transition towards the above targets. Policies may target a specific phase of the building life cycle, but strategies should consider a range of interventions that address the full life cycle. Early adopters of policies can provide valuable experiences for wider roll-out in other countries. Resources in the Hub provide examples, learnings and ideas of policies in the following areas:
- Implementing building codes and embodied carbon limits for materials
- Incentivising more sustainable approaches to construction, such as material re-use, circular design and off-site manufacture
- Mandating different construction activity where this is possible - e.g. renovation over new construction, deconstruction over demolition
- Improving and incentivising green certifications for buildings and materials
Resources are included to address a range of key policy challenges related to building materials. Alongside embodied and operational carbon and circularity, resources are included that can also tackle issues related to chemicals and health, climate adaptation, poverty alleviation through housing, land-use and biodiversity, and responsible material sourcing.
