A new report has found that mental health is largely being overlooked in the world’s strategies for coping with extreme heat, despite mounting evidence that rising temperatures worsen psychological distress, drive up psychiatric hospital admissions, and increase suicide risk. The…
Climate resilience is becoming a baseline condition for sustainable construction, not a premium specification. Satellite analysis showing almost 300,000 people living in flood-prone areas of the Nepalese Himalayas exposes the risk of roads, settlements and infrastructure expanding into valleys vulnerable to floods and landslides. Sustainable building design, green infrastructure, drainage, slope stability, siting and long-term maintenance must now be assessed alongside whole life carbon, embodied carbon and life cycle cost.
The road to COP31 is likely to intensify scrutiny of net zero carbon buildings, adaptation funding and climate-resilient investment. Pacific island states are pressing for stronger action on 1.5C, cleaner power and adaptation finance, reinforcing the need for low carbon design that remains insurable, habitable and financeable in a hotter, wetter world. A credible whole life carbon assessment should account for operational emissions, embodied carbon in materials, lifecycle assessment, building lifecycle performance and the carbon footprint of construction.
Procurement is becoming central to environmental sustainability in construction. Better supplier data, environmental product declarations (EPDs), sustainable material specification and low embodied carbon materials will be critical to verifying claims around green construction, eco-friendly construction and carbon footprint reduction. Confidence in ESG data quality is weakening, making measurable performance more important than marketing language around renewable building materials, green building materials or green building products.
The sector’s next step is evidence-led sustainable design. BREEAM, BREEAM v7, circular economy principles and circular economy in construction can support resource efficiency in construction, end-of-life reuse in construction and circular construction strategies. Green concrete and other low carbon construction materials have a role, but decarbonising the built environment will depend as much on life cycle thinking in construction, eco-design for buildings and robust risk discipline as on new products. Net zero whole life carbon, carbon neutral construction and genuinely energy-efficient buildings will define the next phase of sustainable urban development.
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