Construction companies are in a unique position to showcase action and drive ambition to bring together other stakeholders from across the value chain.

The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) releases the 2021 Advancing Net Zero Status Report, packed with net zero myth busting and stories of industry action towards decarbonising the built environment.

Real estate and infrastructure have evolved from alternative to mainstream asset classes, becoming valuable and growing components of institutional investment portfolios.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2021 report makes it crystal clear that we’re not doing enough to avoid catastrophic impacts from climate change. The question we all have to ask ourselves is what we’re going to do to pull the environment back from the brink.

Digitalization brings business opportunities as well as the potential to improve the sustainability performance of the buildings and construction sector. Despite these promising benefits, the sector has been slow to fully adopt emerging digital technologies.

The built environment is responsible for almost 40% of the global energy and process-related CO2 emissions.

This report looks in detail at the results of six whole life cycle assessment (WLCA) case studies to illustrate some of the challenges, barriers and opportunities relating to the building industry’s carbon footprint. It aims to provide an insight into the industry’s current performance and compare it to possible net-zero trajectories.

A large part of the construction sector’s emissions come from building products and materials – referred to as embodied carbon. Embodied carbon is increasingly becoming the focus of regulatory bodies, making it a risk factor for developers and investors to price into construction projects.

WorldGBC has convened a coalition of construction sector leaders to call on the European Commission to support the full decarbonisation of the built environment through ambitious policies.

The World Green Building Council joins nine international organisations to sign a letter to COP26 President, Alok Sharma, requesting a Built Environment Day at the climate summit in November 2021.