Construction value chains, encompassing the construction and operation of buildings as well as the production of construction materials like cement and steel, contribute to approximately 40 percent of global CO2 emissions. This figure is expected to rise as developing economies, responsible for about two-thirds of these emissions, intensify construction activities for urbanization and development.

IFC is launching this report to guide international efforts to decarbonize construction value chains. Building Green: Sustainable Construction in Emerging Markets was prepared through close collaboration between IFC economists, investment officers, and building and construction sector specialists. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges of reducing carbon emissions from construction value chains in developing countries, but also the considerable opportunities that will come from mobilizing the estimated $1.5 trillion of investment required for this transition.

Read the full report here.

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

This resource delves into the circular initiatives and tools adopted by cities such as Apeldoorn (the Netherlands), Bodø (Norway), Mikkeli (Finland), Seville (Spain), Høje-Taastrup, and Roskilde (Denmark) over their four-year participation in the CityLoops project, coordinated by ICLEI and funded by the EU. The handbook provides a comprehensive, step-by-step overview for other cities and regions on how to replicate these initiatives within their own unique contexts.

This handbook also places these activities in the broader context of the European circular transition, underscoring that circular construction is gaining traction across Europe. However, it emphasizes that the construction sector is just beginning its circular transition, despite being one of the most economically and environmentally resource-intensive sectors. It accounts for approximately half of all material extraction, half of energy consumption, a third of water consumption, and 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

By transforming the unsustainable linear approach of "take-make-dispose", the implementation of circular economies can mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of the construction sector while preserving and enhancing economic value. The handbook showcases practical examples of how cities put these tools into practice, the rationale behind their decisions, potential improvements, and how these efforts align with broader European circular strategies and policies.

Download the handbook

Embodied carbon contributes to 11% of global annual energy-related emissions. Given the scale of the building industry's environmental impact, it is essential that every stakeholder in this sector prioritizes driving action on embodied carbon.

RMI and U.S. Green Building Council recently published a report to accelerate decarbonization by providing answers to key questions about embodied carbon such as "What should we prioritize to reduce embodied carbon?" or "What does the policy landscape look like for embodied carbon?"

This report stresses that now is the time to take decisive action using the best knowledge we have and, in parallel, to accelerate the sector’s learning curve and achieve rapid market transformation. A major challenge that hinders faster progress is “analysis paralysis.” Stakeholders need access to easily understandable scientific takeaways that cut through the noise and provide guidance on how to take immediate action in the building industry. On the other hand, we also must resist the urge to find a “silver bullet” by relying on a single material or design strategy to cut embodied carbon. We must take a critical eye to the science and find solutions that work, no matter where our leverage lies: in policy, on projects, or in product manufacturing.

The report identifies eleven questions that continue to hold back action on embodied carbon, and answers these questions with concise text and illustrations, providing key takeaways and action items as well as providing in-depth resources to be explored.

please read the report here
 

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

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:

• English version
• Chinese version (简体中文版网络手册).  

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.

The GCCA Sustainability Charter and Sustainability Guidelines underpin the sustainability activity of its member companies, setting out what they need to abide by, what they measure and how they report their sustainability performance, especially for Cement and Concrete Manufacturers, providing global guidance on aligning their sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles. These guidelines offer industry-leading Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and parameters tailored to the sector, empowering Sustainability Managers, ESG Managers, and Plant Managers to effectively manage their sustainability performance.

This guideline outlines five key pillars that encompass the full spectrum of sustainability within the cement and concrete sector. It establishes specific requirements for full members to meet in each of these pillars.

The GCCA sustainability guidelines feature a set of straightforward, reliable, and representative KPIs that members must use to monitor and report their performance. To achieve the highest level of compliance, full members are expected to have their data independently verified and made publicly available.

The Global Cement and Concrete Association is an international industry association that was established in 2018. as of 2018, it represented about 35% of the global industry for Cement and Concrete.

Here more about the guidelines here

The Path To Zero Carbon Series explores research and solutions for one of the most significant challenges of the 21^st 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.

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

Although numerous jurisdictions have established design guides for tall mass timber buildings, architects and engineers often do not have access to the specialized building science knowledge required to deliver well-performing mass timber buildings. Mass Timber Institute(MTI) worked collaboratively with industry, design professionals, academia, researchers and code experts to develop the scope and content of this mass timber building science primer.

This report introduced mass timber building systems, which are made of wood products that are engineered to be strong, durable and fire-resistant. The report explains how mass timber buildings can be designed, constructed and evaluated in Canada, and what are the benefits and challenges of using this building system. It also compares mass timber buildings with other building systems in terms of environmental impacts and life cycle assessment. 

Read the full report here.