Climate Action Roadmaps for Buildings and Construction Bangladesh has been launched by the Ministry of Housing and Public Works, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, on 7 October.

This roadmap follows the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) framework, developed through a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). It emphasizes reducing emissions and improving resilience across the entire life cycle of buildings, and sets ambitious short-, medium-, and long-term targets for decarbonizing the built environment, aligned with the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action. The roadmap is centred around four main cross-cutting objectives: (1) zero embodied carbon; (2) zero operational carbon; (3) adaptation; and (4) well-being and inclusion.

Download the roadmap below

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. 

Download the report here

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.

Download the report 

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.

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.

Download the report

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

This report applies network analysis to examine the interdependencies between 75 policy and finance instruments, as well as 22 barriers, to support the transition to net zero carbon buildings. Such a network analysis approach allows us to move beyond case studies to explore potential high-impact pathways for cities to support a low-carbon transition for the building sector effectively.

Developing a systemic representation of the building sector allows us to answer the following questions:

• Which barriers should we prioritize to ensure systemic transformation of the building sector?
• Which instruments should we roll out, and in what sequence?
• What pathways can cities follow to transition to a fully decarbonized building sector?

This report offers initial findings on the general challenges and mechanisms behind the transition towards a net zero carbon buildings sector, helping shed light on concrete pathways cities can implement to decarbonize the building sector.

Download the report now

The Türkiye Building Sector Decarbonization Roadmap was meticulously developed through a transparent, participatory process within the framework of the Zero Carbon Building Accelerator (ZCBA) project, which was implemented in Colombia and Türkiye between 2021-2023. The roadmap aims to guide the building and construction industry by offering comprehensive, pioneering, and sustainable solutions to achieve the goal of combating climate change. The roadmap has been structured to reflect Türkiye’s carbon emission reduction targets and has the goal of reducing emissions throughout the entire lifecycle of buildings. It aims to transform the building industry by increasing energy efficiency, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and promoting environmentally friendly building materials and construction methods. Additionally, it includes strategies to increase the climate resilience of the building sector.

The Extended Summary provides an overview of significant information in the Roadmap.

The fall 2023 issue of Passive House Accelerator explores how the benefits of Passive House construction can turn buildings into islands of tranquility.

Case studies in this issue include an affordable apartment building in the Bronx, a warehouse in the Hudson Valley, a prefabricated classroom on a Spanish beach, and the world's first Passive House certified hospital in Germany.

This issue examines how the benefits of Passive House construction—particularly improved indoor air quality and protection from external noise pollution—can positively affect occupant health in addition to decarbonizing the built environment. This issue also highlights how the principles of Passive House design and construction can be applied to any building typology and in any climate.

Please read the full magazine here.

How does the large-scale application of biobased construction materials impact our forests? Are we not shifting the burden to another planetary boundary if we focus on the reduction of carbon emissions?

This report from Metabolic is a first step in a longer-term exploration to create clarity on these important issues.

This report delves into the current environmental impact of the construction sector in the EU27+UK; the potential scenarios to reduce the impact of the sector by applying timber alternatives to carbon-intensive materials; the implications that this increased demand for timber has on European forests, and what systemic barriers need to be taken into consideration during the planning and development processes.

Please read the full report here.