Dispatches from the Buildings and Climate Global Forum: Anica Landreneau – ADC

What’s going on at the Buildings and Climate Global Forum (BCGF)?

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been meeting since 1995 to tackle global climate change through international cooperation at the annual Conference of the Parties meeting (COP). However, until the Buildings Breakthrough at COP28 in Dubai last fall, the building sector has never been formally incorporated into conference proceedings or international climate agreements and negotiations.

Today it acknowledges that the building and construction sector is responsible for over 34 per cent of energy demand and around 37 per cent of energy-related CO2 emissions (or 21 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. around 12GtCO2) globally. These emissions result from both energy consumption, with 9 per cent linked to combustion and 19 per cent to electricity or network heat consumption, and use of building materials, which represents another 9 per cent.

Last year, the Buildings Breakthrough established that buildings are a significant and necessary component of successful action on climate change, including mitigation (decarbonisation) and adaptation (resilience). The BCGF (hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme) was a smaller – 1400 attendees – and focused conference on the specific criteria that must be included in international agreements and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to address climate change. The BCGF also resulted in the Declaration of Chaillot.

Why are you there?

HOK is a leader in climate action through our architecture, planning, engineering, landscape, interiors and sustainable consulting disciplines. We work on decarbonisation and resilience at national, regional, site and space scales, and have contributed meaningfully to both policy development and implementation, as well as market-transforming design, around the world. We were asked to participate in multiple panels, workshops, CEO roundtable and ministerial engagement events to share our technical expertise and global perspective.

We were there to represent both the design sector, and private sector building industry at large. We feel it is important to be there to demonstrate what the industry and our firm are already accomplishing, how it can be scaled up, and what policy tools are needed to increase demand. Perhaps selfishly, we know that if we can increase demand for design that promotes decarbonisation and resilience, we will not only be able to contribute meaningfully to climate action on a global scale, but it’s good business for our firm.

What have been your key takeaways and how will the decisions/discussions here shape how you practice?

The BCGF event and the Declaration of Chaillot confirm our focus on scaling up existing building renovations, electrification and (near) zero emissions buildings, embodied carbon, low carbon and bio-based construction materials, and equitable climate policies for the building sector. There was strong emphasis on Whole Life Carbon assessments (including emissions from material extraction and manufacturing, construction activity, building operations, and building decommissioning). Our key take away is that we need to present carbon impacts in a ‘whole life’ perspective, in which we can zoom in to focus on particular areas of carbon impact, but at the end of the day we need to be able to roll everything up into a comprehensive carbon accounting for each of our projects. This approach heavily favours renovations and bio-based (timber) projects, as well as designing for circularity, with adaptation and reuse in mind.

The BCGF event also focused on ‘sufficiency,’ and scaling up renovation activity specifically for established world economies with well-developed building stock, while focusing on zero emissions construction and energy grids for the parts of the world that are rapidly growing or urbanising, and who lack sufficient building stock to safely house their residents.

What can the industry expect moving forward?

At least five things:

• Significantly more focus on renovations in developed countries
• Focus on whole life carbon (WLC)
• Increasing focus on electrification
• Increasing focus on timber and bio-based construction materials
• More scrutiny on emissions from construction and decommissioning activities

The forum was a place for leaders and ministers from across the world to coalesce. What were the most radical ideas and policies that you saw being pursued?

Many of the ministers described programs already underway in their countries. These programs addressed renovations, electrification, resilience, measures to address affordable or social housing, engagement with the private sector and financing initiatives, and advancement of building codes.

Whole life carbon is a newer metric and would radically change how our codes and policies consider buildings and their emissions. For example, our model energy codes are primarily focused on energy cost or energy use, with some countries or jurisdictions focusing on operational emissions. While the model building code has removed some barriers to bio-based and timber buildings, it doesn’t yet limit embodied carbon or show a preference for bio-based materials. Where localities do address embodied carbon, it is often a requirement on material-specific carbon (GWP) limits rather than an integrated operational and embodied carbon perspective.

California’s recent updates to CalGreen do include material-specific limits, but otherwise say if at least 50% of the project includes renovation of an existing building, that is the compliance path to the code. This preference for renovations in in line with the direction seen at BCGF, but it doesn’t yet integrate with Title 24 (California’s energy code). The only integrated policy that could be cited as aligned with this concept is the RE2020 legislation adopted by France, who perhaps not coincidentally hosted the BCGF.