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

The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2023 is an annual collaboration between the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions, focused on supporting stronger international collaboration to drive faster reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. This year’s report shows that current efforts on clean energy and sustainable solutions, while improving, are not yet delivering the levels of investment and deployment required to meet international climate goals. In response, it calls on governments to strengthen collaboration in key areas – such as standards and regulation, financial and technical assistance and market creation – to turbocharge the transition.

The 2023 edition, following the development of the Buildings Breakthrough, includes a Buildings chapter, developed in collaboration with GlobalABC and where five areas are identified as priorities for international collaboration to deliver near-zero emissions and resilient buildings: Standards and certification; Demand creation; Finance and investment; Research and deployment; and Knowledge and capacity-building. 

Read the report now

This report covers the role certain types of energy service agreements (ESAs), combined with federal incentives, can play in scaling AMFH retrofits, maximizing the impact of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in decarbonizing existing buildings.

Energy service companies (ESCOs) offer solutions for solar PV, energy efficiency, and electrification measures; often assume some amount of project performance risk; and provide project financing under an ESA. Certain types of ESAs present a viable solution for solving the split incentive issue, financing mid-cycle AMFH retrofits, and addressing the challenges owners may face covering the upfront costs of comprehensive improvements.

This report is based on interviews with ESCOs and techno-economic analysis that quantifies the potential of ESAs for financing building decarbonization packages.

Concrete New Zealand (ConcreteNZ) published A Net-Zero Carbon Concrete Industry for Aotearoa New Zealand: Roadmap to 2050 .

The roadmap outlines the New Zealand cement and concrete industry’s commitment to achieve net-zero concrete production by 2050. The roadmap sets targets for a 44% reduction in direct and electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, aligning with global standards.

The roadmap also showcases the industry’s efforts and innovations to reduce emissions and enhance the sustainability of concrete, and it aims to support the New Zealand government’s climate change goals and contribute to the global net zero movement.

Read the full roadmap here.

The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) published the fifth edition of its annual Advancing Net Zero (ANZ) Status Report.

The report showcases breakthrough action from across the GBC network, including the 35 GBCs participating in WorldGBC’s global Advancing Net Zero programme, 175 signatories to the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment (the Commitment), the wider GBCs network, partners and more. In addition, the report also highlights collaborative efforts from the market that support WorldGBC’s mission to achieve 100% net zero carbon buildings by 2050.

Read the full report here

The focus of this report is to evaluate the strategic use of renewables, energy storage, building load flexibility, and grid coordination. These focus areas are foundational to achieving smart, connected, and high-performing buildings, and in supporting advances in grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) technologies and their adoption in the US residential building stock. This research analyzes the potential value of GEB strategies on a subset of WinnCompanies’ multifamily housing portfolio and develops an investment plan of energy projects. Through an extensive assessment of the portfolio, the study recommends packages of measures for optimized portfolio-wide investments and provides investment pathways to support decarbonization. 

Read on here

Each year, FIEC publishes its Statistical Report, which gives an insight into construction activity and demonstrates its significance for the economy as a whole.

The report analyses 22 countries individually, as well as the European Union as a whole on the basis of the following elements:

• General overview (general economic situation, general economic policy, public policies in relation to the construction industry);
• Investment in total construction, new housebuilding, renovation and maintenance of residential buildings, non-residential building and civil-engineering;
• Employment in construction and its share in overall EU employment;
• Building permits.

For the first time, the report also provides an overview of the evolution of prices for certain construction products. The texts and data contained within the report are drawn up on the basis of the national reports provided by the FIEC Member Federations.

Find the report here

CAPSA is a digital building passport data platform, developed by CUES Foundation (one of the co-chairs of the GlobalABC Work Area 5: Building measurement, data and information) and in partnership including with the Horizon Europe framework as well as with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC). 

A Building Passport (sometimes referred to as a Digital Building Logbook or (Electronic) Building File) is a whole life cycle repository of building information. It covers a building’s administrative documentation as well as data regarding its plot and location, its technical and functional characteristics, and its environmental, social and financial performance. In its fully digital realization, the Building Passport acts as a single point of input, access and visualization of all the information associated with a building. It is a living document, containing a mix of traceable static “as built” and continuous dynamic record‑keeping of performance data and information. Learn more from our report The Building Passport: A Tool for Capturing and Managing Whole Life Data and Information in Construction and Real Estate.

The CAPSA Digital Building Passport prototyping platform was developed to flank the strategic activities of the GlobalABC around the topic with a way to feasibility test ideas and methodologies. CAPSA consists of a smartphone app for data collection as well as a corresponding cloud-based data base. The smartphone app aims to enable non-expert users to generate robust and comparable data. Data collection focussed on hard and visible information, entered one info at a time. Besides direct data entry, photos are taken for context and image recognition purposes.

Download the CAPSA pamphlet to learn more. 

European buildings represent 40% of final energy consumption and 36% of GHG emissions related to energy, making them a priority axis for decarbonisation. For the EU, it is urgent to reduce buildings’ energy consumption, especially since 75% of existing buildings are reportedly energy inefficient (i.e. EPC band C or lower according to the SFDR) and require energy renovation work. To act on these issues, one of the main regulatory levers available to the EU is the Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD). This directive requires EU countries to ensure that by the end of 2020, all newbuilds are nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB). This EU standard relies on two main pillars: a strong energy performance and the local production of renewable energy.

Read the study here

 “Constructing a Sustainable Future” is the new Saint-Gobain magazine dedicated to sustainable construction.

The construction sector is indeed at the crossroads of the major contemporary issues that humanity and the planet are facing: the climate crisis, energy emergency, rapid urbanization and the social challenge of decent housing, as well as the necessary protection of natural resources. In this context, we have both solutions and a capacity for action that can turn the tide, at a time when decision-makers around the world are making a commitment to build a more sustainable world.

The purpose of this publication is to share and illustrate our mobilization to meet this ambition. An expanded digital version will be available on constructing-sustainable-future.com at the beginning of June. The digital magazine is designed to be a link between the various representatives of the building and construction industry, as well as a platform for exchange and dialogue to share the greatest achievements, best practices and innovations that will help to accelerate our sector's transition. Like this first edition, the digital magazine will address and give a voice to all who wish to engage in this end: architects, urban planners, promoters, builders, craftsmen, manufacturers, distributors, political leaders, and students.