The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) and its network of more than 75 Green Building Councils have issued a call to policymakers worldwide to review and strengthen their national building plans and policies, leveraging a newly launched digital tool — the NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings.
Released on 24 June 2025, this tool is designed to help governments and key stakeholders assess their countries’ climate action plans, pinpointing areas where further action is needed to rapidly decarbonise the building sector and enhance resilience to meet global 2030 climate targets.
This initiative comes at a pivotal moment as countries prepare for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, where updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — the national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement — will be under intense scrutiny.
The urgency is clear: to meet 2030 climate goals, nations must collectively reduce emissions by 42 per cent.
Yet, current NDC commitments are insufficient, falling well short of the 1.5 degrees Celsius target and instead putting the world on track for 2.6–3.1 degrees Celsius of warming by century’s end.
Despite a February deadline for revised NDC submissions, only 23 out of 195 countries have complied so far.
The buildings and construction sector remains a significant contributor to global emissions, consuming 32 per cent of global energy and accounting for 34 per cent of CO2 emissions.
While 81 per cent of NDCs reference buildings, only 18 per cent include quantified targets and just 16 per cent outline funding strategies, highlighting a critical gap in sector-specific action.
The NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings aims to address these gaps by enabling governments to:
- Identify best practice policy measures for inclusion in NDCs and national frameworks.
- Analyse the alignment of national policies and regulations with these measures.
- Foster collaboration among industry stakeholders and policymakers.
- Prepare political actors for developing national decarbonisation roadmaps, with GBCs serving as facilitators.
The tool was developed with input from five pilot GBCs — Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Nigeria, and the Philippines — and in consultation with a global network of 40 organisations to ensure local relevance.
It covers policy categories including enabling environment, carbon and energy, adaptation and resilience, circularity, water, biodiversity and nature, health and wellbeing, and equity and access.
Cristina Gamboa, CEO of WorldGBC, emphasised the importance of local implementation following global consensus, stating: “Alongside our network of more than 75 Green Building Councils and their 48,000 private sector and government members, we have been through a journey of growth — and we’ve learned that to achieve true sustainable transformation, after the global consensus must come local action and implementation.
“And we are now in that era of implementation.
“In this spirit, the NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings has been created to identify the policy gaps and opportunities for governments and industry.
“We are hoping to mobilise a clear and coordinated government response ahead of COP30 to #BeBoldOnBuildings, which means scaling the sustainable building solutions that work in line with the Global Stocktake.
“The ultimate responsibility of policymakers is to their people.
“This scorecard enables dialogue and collaboration with their national GBCs to implement bold building policies, and actionable solutions, that can improve people’s livelihoods and reduce the rate of climate change.”
With the 2025 NDCs set to shape policies and investments for the next decade, WorldGBC’s new tool aims to empower governments to bridge finance gaps, create green jobs, improve energy security, and accelerate climate action through a sustainable built environment.
