5 June 2020
Reducing carbon emissions from buildings
Almost 100 companies, states and organisations have signed up to the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment initiative and have pledged to ensure their buildings emit zero carbon emissions by 2030 or sooner. The initiative was set up in 2018 by the World Green Building Council (WGBC) and provides a framework for organisations to develop solutions for their portfolio to reduce energy demand and achieve net zero carbon emissions. The WGBC estimate that CO2 emissions will be reduced by 3.3 million tonnes through the actions pledged. Signatories include Finnish retail developer Citycon, Finnish pension insurer Varma and healthcare and real estate investment trust Assura. In addition, 28 cities, six states and one region have signed the commitment.
The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has also recently announced the next phase of its Accelerator Cities project. As reported by Business Green in their article here, the project is aimed at bringing together local authorities to help drive action on energy efficiency to upgrade the country’s draughty housing stock. As reported by Business Green, UKGBC said that the initiative – which has so far seen councils across Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and London, and the West Midlands sign up – has been set up to support towns and cities in developing their own home retrofit programmes and help share best practice between them. Stakeholders backing the initiative include Green Alliance, UK100, Otley Energy, Bioregional, the Active Building Centre and the Energy Saving Trust.
At IMS we expect that there will be more opportunities for building firms to work towards upgrading housing stock as government’s tackle domestic energy use to reduce carbon emissions.
