The question of cost comes up when discussing any form of change, whether it be automobiles, cell phones or better buildings. Throughout history, humans have bettered their life through innovation, delivering better products for less money, yet a pervasive assumption persists in the construction sector that improvements to building efficiency, durability, resilience or health will negatively impact affordability. The opposite is in fact true, yet the assumption continues in many circles.

To address this assumption, I have frequently been asked for costing studies to demonstrate the affordability of highly energy efficient new buildings. The “better costs more” narrative assumes, for example, that energy efficiency requires adding stuff to buildings, thereby increasing cost, rather than designing them differently to achieve better outcomes. This article is written to provide a response to those concerned about the cost of climate and people friendly new buildings.

The European Union aims to be climate-neutral by 2050, requiring a fundamental transformation of the construction and building sectors. This decade is critical as direct building CO2 emissions need to more than halve by 2030 to get on track for a net-zero carbon building stock by 2050. Emissions must be drastically cut throughout the whole lifecycle of buildings, encompassing all operational and embodied emissions. In the Renovation Wave strategy, the European Commission announced its intention to address “lifecycle thinking and circularity”; it is important that the intention is followed up by decisive action and integrated into regulatory proposals. This summary report introduces basic concepts and key issues related to the integration of whole-life carbon considerations in building policies.

Le Guide des actions adaptatives au changement climatique permet de présenter aux acteurs désireux d’améliorer leur résilience un panel d'actions adaptatives et de cibler rapidement les plus appropriées compte tenu des caractéristiques de leurs bâtiments et de leurs besoins. A destination des acteurs de l’immobilier, du bâtiment et du territoire, il aborde les informations clés sur 41 actions adaptatives : Partie(s) du bâtiment ; Etapes du cycle de vie ; Estimation de coût ; Niveau de compétence requis ; Conseils de mise en œuvre ; Freins et leviers. Sur certaines fiches, retrouvez le retour d’expérience d’acteurs qui ont déjà expérimenté ces actions !

Pour aider les acteurs du territoire et de l’immobilier à mettre en place une stratégie cohérente, l’OID y ajoute en 2024 :  

• des repères de suivi composés notamment d’indicateurs pour mettre en place un suivi et des ajustements,  
• des alertes sur les potentielles maladaptations de chaque solution envisagée,  
• des fiches « conditions sine qua non » détaillant les conditions essentielles à respecter pour une mise en œuvre réussie des actions adaptatives, et  
• des solutions adaptatives fondées sur la nature (SAFN) à prioriser.

This report is the first output of the GlobalABC “adaptation” working group (see appendix methodology), launched at COP24 in Katowice. During the Global- ABC meeting in Rabat in October 2018, the representatives of the Kingdom of Morocco and GlobalABC members expressed their mutual wish to see the challenges of climate change adaptation and the benefits of initiatives in the real-estate, building, and construction sector (referred to in this report as the RBC sector) be put in the spotlight, as up until now they have not been given due attention. The report was coordinated by the Green Building Observatory (OID, Paris) with the support of the French Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Climate change is regarded as the major issue that humanity will face this century. Extreme weather events and failure to implement climate-change mitigation and adaptation actions are the two greatest risks that the global economy will face in terms of their likelihood and impact, according to the World Economic Forum (2019).

The built environment is particularly at risk from climate change, and as such so are the people living and working within buildings. Governments and all actors along the buildings and construction value chain therefore need to take action, as climate risks pose a real threat to the lives and economic activities of people. Buildings as long-term assets should be resilient to climate change, and also to other future risks such as pandemics and potential behavior changes.

The report is divided into: 

PART 1: Why Does Adapting Buildings to Climate Change Matter?

The first section of the report deals with global challenges regarding adaptation of the built environment: definitions and relevance, macro-economic impacts (costs of adaptation vs non-adaptation) as well as the strong links between adaptation and mitigation in the RBC sector.

PART 2: Adapting the RBC Sector to Climate Change

The second section highlights ongoing and necessary changes in the RBC sector to better integrate adaptation challenges: processes based on the building lifecycle, risk assessments, regulatory frameworks and stakeholder engagement, i.e. creating an enabling environment for change. This section introduces concrete actions to this end.

PART 3: Frameworks of Action

The third and most important section presents a framework for suggested action for key actors in the RBC sector. It summarizes specific challenges faced by each actor in adapting buildings to climate change and identifies the current global state of their practices along with recommendations for each stakeholder group in order to improve the adaptation of buildings to climate change. The action plan was informed by surveys and interviews held with relevant stakeholders and has been reviewed by sectoral organisations. Five challenges and five recommendations are presented, selected in order to focus on the most critical issues.

Download now the full report or the specific sections below! 

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction is a reference document of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC). The fifth edition of this annual snapshot of the progress of the buildings and construction sector globally towards the achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, particularly on the drivers of CO2 emissions and energy demand globally and the status of policies, finance, technologies, and solutions that support a zero-emission, efficient, and resilient buildings and construction sector. This year’s Buildings-GSR features input from over 110 GlobalABC members and experts from all regions: a true collaborative effort, building a global community. This year’s Buildings-GSR shines a light on the disruptions of COVID-19 and some of the responses in 2020, and includes a snapshot on emerging key issues: materials, nature-based solutions, health, and cooling for resilience. It also introduces a new index to track progress in decarbonisation in the sector – the Buildings Climate Tracker (BCT).

While the total final energy consumption of the global buildings sector remained at the same level in 2019 compared to the previous year, CO2 emissions from the operation of buildings have increased to their highest level yet at around 10 GtCO2, or 28% of total global energy-related CO2 emissions. With the inclusion of emissions from the buildings construction industry, this share increases to 38% of total global energy-related CO2 emissions. The slightly lower proportion of buildings emissions compared with the 39% seen in 2018 was due to the increases in transport and other industry emissions relative to buildings.

Sources: (IEA 2020d; IEA 2020b). All rights reserved. Adapted from “IEA World Energy Statistics and Balances” and “Energy TechnologyPerspectives".

Authors: Dr. Ian Hamilton and Dr. Harry Kennard from University College London (UCL) and Oliver Rapf, Dr. Judit Kockat and Dr. Sheikh Zuhaib from the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), with support from Thibaut Abergel and Michael Oppermann from the International Energy Agency (IEA), and support from Martina Otto, Sophie Loran, Nora Steurer and Natacha Nass from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC)

The strength of the text is that it is not subject to any institutional constraints. It has no claim other than to gather and summarise the many contributions from our members, representing a broad and deep knowledge base, emphasising the “disruptions” and the innovative solutions that we should introduce into urban policies.

Nationally determined contributions guide 

Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact is one of gravest existential threats facing our collective, sustainable future survival on this planet.

SDG 13 has many aspects that relate to action on buildings and the work of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

The brief contains 1. an overview of SDG 13 progress to date, in particular regarding the integration of the environmental dimension; 2. Gaps identified, key challenges and policies to address them, highlighting the interlinkages with other SDGs; 3. Examples of working policies; 4. Key messages.

Read the issue brief to learn more.

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13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate impacts
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13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning
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13.3: Improve climate education, awareness, human and institutional capacity
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13.A: Mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to address needs of developing countries in meaningful adaptation and transparency of implementation
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13.B: Raise capacity for effective climate change related planning and management in least developed countries