2030 is Today: How We Can Act Now to Halve Built Environment Emissions by 2030 – COP27

The building and construction sector is responsible for about 40% of global energy-related carbon emissions. To achieve a net-zero built environment by 2050 we need to halve current emissions from 14Gt to 7Gt by 2030. This requires a systemic approach to reduce the entire whole-life carbon emissions. But what does this mean, and how can it be done in practice?  

This thematic session, led by WBCSD and the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) was chaired by James Drinkwater from the Laudes Foundation and it discussed how to enable the change that we need in the industry.  

Alejandra Rivera from IHRB’s Built Environment Programme was a panelist and contributed to this discussion with the perspective of how to accelerate decarbonisation, but in a just and inclusive way. She highlighted IHRB’s work on just transitions in the built environment and our 3 levers of change: (1) strengthening the evidence base through action research in 8 cities globally, (2) through direct engagement with local stakeholders to facilitate vision and narrative building, and (3) getting the message to key decision makers at local and global levels. 

“We should leverage the impact and scale of civil society to address the impact and scale of our challenges” 

Alejandra’s other main points were:  

1. The climate transition needs to be a just transition. For it to be just, it needs to respect human rights (echoing IHRB’s CEO John Morrison’s words here) 

2. The concept of ‘just transition’ is about workers’ rights AND also other affected groups, including tenants (us, the consumers of the built environment and energy), also indigenous peoples, coastal communities, and traditionally disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Hence, we need to expand the concept and guidelines for the just transition in the built environment.  

3. To enable change, the benefits and negative impacts of the transition should be clear to all stakeholders. Like this, we can engage in a social dialogue that seeks to maximise benefits and minimise risks to people, while recognising the needs and responsibilities of every sector of the built environment ecosystem.