The first State of Finance for Forests (SFF) report: Unlock. Unleash. Realizing forest potential requires tripling investments in forests by 2030 provides a global overview of public and private forest finance in 2023, comparing current flows with the investments needed to realize forests’ potential to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation. It integrates key private finance channels and nature-related asset classes such as certified commodity supply chains, impact investing, carbon and biodiversity markets, philanthropic funding, and private capital mobilized through public finance. The report finds that forests remain significantly underfunded: annual investment must increase from US$84 billion in 2023 to US$300 billion by 2030 and US$498 billion by 2050, leaving an annual gap of about US$216 billion. Private forest finance remains modest at US$7.5 billion in 2023, with most flows directed to lower-risk markets rather than tropical commodities that drive the bulk of deforestation. At the same time, potentially environmentally damaging subsidies reached around US$406 billion in 2023, and private financial institutions provided an estimated US$8.9 trillion in active financing to companies with high deforestation risk as of November 2024.
The strongest signals for sustainable construction are coming from the systems that determine whether low-carbon development is bankable, operable and resilient. The UK Climate Change Committee’s warning on delivery failures exposes a widening gap between policy ambition and execution, especially where buildings depend on clean power, retrofit capacity, credible regulation and measurable whole life carbon outcomes. For developers, investors and occupiers, environmental sustainability in construction now depends on evidence: whole life carbon assessment, lifecycle assessment, life cycle cost modelling and verified building lifecycle performance.
The next clean-power Contracts for Difference auction is directly relevant to sustainable building design. Analysts’ estimates of potential £11bn savings in wholesale power costs to 2050 would strengthen the commercial case for electrified heat, on-site renewables, energy-efficient buildings and net zero carbon buildings. Cheaper clean electricity would support low carbon design and carbon footprint reduction across new-build and retrofit portfolios. Without it, net zero carbon strategies remain exposed to volatile energy prices and cautious capital allocation.
Operational performance is becoming a defining test for green construction. Calls for pumps and building services to become part of a building’s “digital DNA” reflect a shift from designing efficient assets to proving performance in use. Data-rich systems, predictive maintenance and transparent performance records are now central to sustainable building practices, carbon management and asset value. A low carbon building must be efficient beyond practical completion, with life cycle thinking in construction embedded in procurement, commissioning and facilities management.
Climate adaptation is moving into core specification. London’s parks authorities are rethinking planting and watering as hotter, drier summers put urban green space under pressure. For sustainable urban development, landscape is no longer decorative mitigation; it is green infrastructure that cools cities, manages water and protects public health. This is where eco-design for buildings, sustainable architecture and low-impact construction must connect with resilience, biodiversity and public realm performance.
The post-Grenfell debate reinforces a fundamental point: sustainable design cannot be separated from competence, traceability and trust. A project cannot claim net zero whole life carbon if it is unsafe, poorly documented or unmanageable. The next phase of decarbonising the built environment will be judged through embodied carbon, embodied carbon in materials, sustainable material specification, environmental product declarations (EPDs), low embodied carbon materials and credible circular economy planning. Low carbon construction materials, renewable building materials, green building materials and green building products will matter only where they support resource efficiency in construction, end-of-life reuse in construction and practical circular construction strategies.
The direction of travel is clear. The carbon footprint of construction must be reduced through robust whole life carbon assessment, reliable clean power, better operational data, circular economy in construction and resilient green infrastructure. The sector’s credibility will rest on delivering net zero carbon buildings that perform under real climatic, regulatory and economic pressure.
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