As communities around the world experience the impacts of the global energy and cost of living crisis, the WorldGBC campaign — #BuildingforEveryone — calls on the global building and construction sector to accelerate the uptake of solutions for low carbon and highly resilient built environments.
This year’s World Green Building Week put people back at the heart of the built environment by demonstrating how the network is catalysing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Throughout the week, the GBC network hosted events across the world and shared examples of #BuildingforEveryone — built environments that drive climate action and thriving communities and economies. This year’s campaign tied into WorldGBC’s 20 year anniversary and the #BuildingToCOP27 initiative, which aims to elevate the role the built environment can play as a critical climate solution in the context of the UN climate negotiations taking place in Egypt in November 2022.
World Green Building Council CEO Cristina Gamboa said four billion people are vulnerable today to the impacts of climate change, and the World Meteorological Organisation reports we already have a 50 per cent chance of breaching 1.5°C of warming over the next five years.
“According to the World Health Organization, air pollution kills over seven million people a year. And right now, the energy and cost of living crisis is already disproportionately affecting our societies’ most vulnerable people.
“The global built environment is responsible for almost 40 per cent of global energy-related carbon emissions and 50 per cent of extracted materials. By 2050, 1.6 billion urban dwellers will be regularly exposed to extreme high temperatures, which causes droughts and wildfire, and over 800 million people, living in more than 570 cities, will be vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding.
“The built environment accounts for 10 per cent of employment and 50 per cent of all wealth. But climate change increases the risk of built assets becoming stranded ones. Climate change risks US $16 trillion of value for residential real estate assets and US $5 trillion for global commercial assets.
“As we build on the successes of Cities, Regions and Built Environment Day at the UN Climate Conference, COP26, in 2021 and continue to advocate for climate action towards COP27, leaders must leverage the untapped opportunities of the built environment to decarbonise our economies and provide social economic benefits for those who need it the most.
#BuildingforEveryone’s three themes highlight how the built environment can support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:
Building for the planet
The climate crisis is also a global health crisis. Unless we take urgent action to reduce climate breakdown now, the health of millions of people will be negatively affected by increased temperatures, infectious diseases will spread faster, and it will be harder to grow the food we need to live healthily.
Building for communities
1.6 billion people will lack access to safe, adequate housing by 2025. To combat the global cost of living crisis, we need to take urgent action now to address inadequate, unaffordable housing and enhance equity, economic productivity and environmental sustainability.
Building for economies
Sustainable built environments bolster our economies’ most important asset — nature. Accelerating a more circular and regenerative economy will create new jobs and savings on energy bills. We need to take urgent action now to advance economies that are more productive and resilient for our communities and our planet.