This report was prepared by the Energy Efficiency Hub’s Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) Task Group, and focuses on the experience of Argentina, Brazil, People’s Republic of China, the European Commission, Germany, Korea and Saudi Arabia. Insights from Belgium, Canada, France, Ireland and the United States are also included. Deep retrofit is an essential tool to reaching building decarbonisation by 2050, and the recommendations in this report focus on enabling widespread deployment of deep retrofits.

Since its launch at COP 26, the Breakthrough Agenda has become established as an annual collaborative process centred around the Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is currently supported by 59 countries representing over 80% of global GDP, and by over 100 initiatives working to enhance collaboration within major emitting sectors. Countries can endorse Breakthrough goals to make clean technologies and sustainable practices more affordable, accessible and attractive than their alternatives by 2030 in the power, road transport, hydrogen, steel, cement, buildings and agriculture sectors. This report covers six of the seven sectors, with agricultural covered in a separate report.

The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these goals, identify where further coordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

To initiate this cycle, world leaders tasked the IEA and the UN Climate Change High Level Champions to develop an annual Breakthrough Agenda report to provide an independent evidence base and expert recommendations for where stronger international collaboration is needed.

This document, the 2024 Breakthrough Agenda Report, is the third of these annual reports. It provides an assessment of progress against the recommendations made last year, updating recommendations for what more needs to be done.

This year's report includes the second edition of the Buildings Chapter, developed in collaboration with the GlobalABC. The chapter highlights progress in the built environment and calls on governments to strengthen collaboration, in five priority areas: standards & certification, demand creation,  finance & investment, research & deployment, capacity & skills– to accelerate decarbonisation and enhance resilience in buildings. 

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The 2024 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast introduces more stringent provisions for EPCs and establishes a framework for renovation passports as an additional voluntary tool to provide a clear roadmap for staged deep renovations. In accordance with Article 12 of the EPBD, Member States are required to put in place a renovation passport scheme by 29 May 2026 based on the common framework set out in Annex VIII of the EPBD.

The iBRoad2EPC project has developed a flexible, adaptable and modular model renovation passport that provides a set of solutions that can be immediately applied to the transposition and/or implementation of a number of EU policy instruments.

The present report includes a detailed analysis of how iBRoad2EPC can support and facilitate the implementation of each article of the EPBD and its requirements for the renovation passports as set in Annex VIII, as well as the Renovation Wave strategy, the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The analysis then informs concrete actions to maximise the uptake of iBRoad2EPC to achieve the EU’s decarbonisation goals.

The iBRoad2EPC EU roadmap thus provides guidance to policymakers on how to optimally prepare the ground for national roll out and maximise the use of iBRoad2EPC to accelerate deep renovation in the EU. It thereby provides recommendations for improving the implementation of related Directives or amending the regulatory framework to promote deep renovation, and how to best use iBRoad2EPC for this purpose.

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Decarbonizing existing buildings is challenging but necessary to achieve climate goals. To accelerate progress, we need to make energy retrofits more accessible, affordable, and commonplace. A viable market for decarbonization and a streamlined retrofitting process can help make these efforts more equitable and cost-effective today.

The majority of US buildings that will exist in 2050 are already standing. Reducing climate pollution from leaky and inefficient existing buildings that run on fossil fuels is fundamental to any climate strategy. Yet the typical retrofitting process depends heavily on owners and is fraught with uncertainty. Conflicting guidance, high costs, fragmented financing, and administrative burdens are all significant hurdles that owners and service providers face impeding the widespread adoption of retrofitting solutions. There is an urgency to develop a robust market for building decarbonization to meet climate targets. Efforts to induce and support this shift should be focused on scalable solutions, favorable policies, and programmatic systems.

In recent years, RMI has focused on accelerating deep energy retrofits for affordable housing across Massachusetts to catalyze the growth of a viable regional market for building decarbonization by facilitating key “lighthouse projects.” These projects serve as exemplary models for eliminating on-site fossil fuels, maximizing efficiencies, reducing emissions, and enhancing comfort and health for low- and middle-income residents. This report outlines our progress in Massachusetts to date, synthesizing observations of the current market, including enabling factors for decarbonization such as extensive stakeholder engagement and knowledge-sharing platforms. We identify common challenges including difficulties with decarbonization assessments, financial barriers, and administrative burdens.

As a result of these direct project engagements, the report also distills lessons learned into suggested paradigm shifts to scale building decarbonization, such as adopting holistic building design approaches and integrating standardized frameworks. RMI proposes foundational and strategic actions to reinforce a landscape conducive to building retrofits that benefit low-income households and preserve a livable climate for future generations. By developing, refining, and sharing best practices, processes, and strategies across the industry, stakeholders can stimulate a thriving market for building decarbonization and drive progress toward a low-carbon future.

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This study assessed the prioritisation for the introduction of possible future European EoW criteria for a list of ten pre-selected construction and demolition waste and by-product (CDW) streams. There was a general positive acceptance and willingness among stakeholders to introduce EU-wide EoW criteria. The results showed the highest potential for possible future EU-wide EoW criteria for the waste and by-product streams of aggregates, concrete, fired clay bricks and gypsum, followed by average potential for asphalt, inert insulation, plastic foam insulation, rigid plastics and wood, and a clear outlier for the stream of building products for reuse. It is advisable to address the highest scoring waste streams first in order to achieve a higher impact. From all the stakeholder interactions during this study, it was clear that the majority of stakeholders would be in favour of future European EoW criteria for the CDW streams investigated. The advantages of possible future EU-wide EoW criteria (clear material status, less administration, environmental benefits and improved market) outweighed the disadvantages (market disruption where local EoW criteria already exist and environmental risks). The demand for the reuse of CDW and the acceptance of a possible future EU-wide EoW was widely supported by all stakeholder groups. The existence of standards for CDW and the existence of some national and regional CDWrelated EoW criteria also showed the urgency and need for EU-wide EoW criteria in the future. Some stakeholders emphasised the need for future European EoW criteria for CDW to recognise existing national and regional criteria in order to minimise or reduce bureaucratic burden. In addition, based on stakeholder input, the introduction of EU-wide EoW criteria for all CDW streams is expected to increase market potential and sales. An important observation was that for inert waste streams there is potential for grouping, e.g. aggregates, asphalt, fired clay bricks and concrete, in future European EoW criteria. This has also been applied in national legislation in several EU Member States. It is recommended to further assess whether grouped future EU-wide EoW criteria would have a higher impact than ungrouped criteria. In general, the input provided a positive picture of the potential environmental and economic impacts associated with the introduction of EU-wide EoW criteria for CDW, together with a positive market attitude. The results of the environmental and human health impact regarding an increase in recycling for gypsum, fired clay bricks. In addition, it should be noted that construction and demolition is by far the largest single waste and by-product stream in the EU and therefore there would be a large potential for positive environmental impacts if recycling rates were improved. The results of this study provided a solid background for the European Commission to plan possible further steps towards EU-wide End-of-Waste criteria for CDW.

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Buildings and construction not only contribute to climate change, but are also vulnerable to its impacts, whether it’s hurricanes, flooding, sea level rise, and heatwaves. With more frequent and severe climate-related events, the world must adopt climate-resilient building practices to reduce vulnerabilities, particularly in areas experiencing rapid urban growth.

Read the Building and Construction Fact Sheet (UNEP Sectoral Solution to Climate Change) to learn more.

This guidance is primarily aimed at public procurers involved in a range of contracting agreements related to building materials and products. This includes the purchase of building materials for construction works, but may also extend to material extraction, manufacturing, building, retrofit, refurbishment, design, interior fit out, and end-of-life demolition or deconstruction processes. 

There are a variety of roles within the procurement cycle that the guidance can support, from commissioning, category management, tender preparation and evaluation, to contract management.

Following the “build back better” principle, BPIE presents in this report six investment criteria to guide a sustainable reconstruction of Ukraine's heavily damaged built environment. The report calls on multilateral donors and the Ukrainian government to allocate funding to projects that meet ambitious energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate adaptation, and circularity criteria.

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The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction (Buildings-GSR), a report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), provides an annual snapshot of the progress of the buildings and construction sector on a global scale. The Buildings-GSR reviews the status of policies, finance, technologies, and solutions to monitor whether the sector is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. It also provides stakeholders with evidence to persuade policymakers and the overall buildings and construction community to take action.

As outlined in the latest edition, the buildings and construction sector contributes significantly to global climate change, accounting for about 21 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, buildings were responsible for 34 per cent global energy demand and 37 per cent of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The 2022 update of the Global Buildings Climate Tracker (GBCT) paints a concerning picture: the gap between the current state and the desired decarbonisation path is significant. To align with the 2030 milestone, an annual increase of ten decarbonisation points is now required, a substantial jump from the six points anticipated per year starting in 2015.

This year, the deep dive chapters are the following: Adaptation and resilient construction methods; Innovations in business cases as well as Nature-based solutions and biophilic design.

Learn more and download the 2023 Buildings-GSR

The report highlights the urgent global crisis of climate change, emphasizing its wide-ranging consequences on the environment, biodiversity, human health, and poverty. It particularly focuses on the vulnerability of the built environment to climate change impacts and stresses the need for immediate adaptation measures. Despite the clear benefits and urgent need for adaptation, there's a notable delay in embracing and implementing adaptation strategies across stakeholders within the buildings and construction sector, though the report demonstrates that each stakeholder already has tools and levers to contribute to the resilience of the built environment. The text then addresses various challenges hindering adaptation efforts, including reluctance to bear initial costs, a predominant focus on mitigation rather than adaptation, and the need for local-level initiatives and financial resources. It calls for collective action, emphasizing the shared responsibility of all stakeholders in addressing climate change adaptation and ensuring a sustainable future.

Download the full report and its executive summary below.