🏙Cities are key in combatting the climate crisis. Almost 5 billion people...

UN Climate Change 2 years ago

🏙Cities are key in combatting the climate crisis. Almost 5 billion people live in towns or cities. Generating 70% of global CO2 emissions, they can be powerful agents of change. "Portraits of Urban Change" is a photo contest by @UNUEHS and @unclimatechange showing projects that help make our cities more sustainable, inclusive and resilient. Here are three of the 20 pictures selected to be exhibited at the upcoming #COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan in November: 🗑️The production, use and waste management of plastics generates about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Mr and Mrs Ebun in Nigeria have made it their livelihood to collect plastic bags and bottles, wash them clean, weigh them and take them to recycling plants for a token. Photo: Samuel Okechukwu ⚡️ Cities use 75% of the world’s energy and produce 70% of greenhouse gases. In an effort to switch to renewable energy sources, a major corporation in Cebu in the Philippines has converted their primary power source to clean energy and placed several hectares of solar panels on residential houses. Photo: Mark Linel Padecio 🌱 Urban areas can be up to 10°C hotter than surrounding regions. City forests or gardens can significantly reduce air temperatures - and contribute to food security at the same time. An NGO in Brazil covered its roof with a vegetable garden that produces organic food and serves 400 families from the neighboring community. Photo: Hans von Manteuffel Every action counts! #UrbanOctober

layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 8 hours ago



The sustainable construction agenda is shifting from headline innovation to measurable delivery across buildings, infrastructure and finance. The World Green Building Council’s Advancing Net Zero work, set against IRENA’s warning that electrification and renewables remain too slow, reinforces the need for net zero carbon buildings backed by cleaner grids, heat electrification and stable policy.

Certification alone will not deliver net zero whole life carbon. The sector needs whole life carbon assessment, lifecycle assessment and life cycle thinking in construction to guide sustainable building design, low carbon design and credible decarbonising the built environment.

The UK debate over the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is therefore material to environmental sustainability in construction. Any reduction in support for heat pumps would slow one of the clearest routes to cutting operational emissions in existing homes. Energy-efficient buildings require long-term policy certainty, robust life cycle cost analysis and practical sustainable building practices, not fragmented incentives. Green construction must be judged by building lifecycle performance, carbon footprint reduction and the carbon footprint of construction, including embodied carbon, embodied carbon in materials and the specification of low embodied carbon materials.

Climate adaptation is now becoming core construction policy. A ÂŁ1.6m programme to install flood-resilience measures in 100 East Midlands homes after Storms Babet and Henk shows resilience retrofit moving into mainstream housing delivery. The River Trent restoration analysis, indicating ÂŁ10bn in economic gains and more than ÂŁ7 of benefit for every ÂŁ1 invested, strengthens the case for green infrastructure, sustainable urban development and nature-based investment as serious economic strategy.

Future growth in construction will need to align with circular economy principles, circular economy in construction, resource efficiency in construction and circular construction strategies. Low carbon construction materials, renewable building materials, green building materials, green building products and environmental product declarations (EPDs) will become central to sustainable material specification and eco-design for buildings. New building demand that ignores flood risk, heat demand, end-of-life reuse in construction and the wider environmental impact of construction risks creating stranded assets. Sustainable architecture, eco-friendly construction and low-impact construction are entering a stricter phase, where BREEAM, BREEAM v7 and whole life carbon performance will matter as much as planning consent, capital cost and short-term market recovery.

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