Colin Goodson knows more about energy than most people.
The tall, bearded Mainer is an engineer on an offshore oil drilling ship in the Gulf of Mexico. But when it came time for him to build a home in Southern Maine, Goodson largely bypassed fossil fuels.
The house he built is entirely off the grid, powered from rooftop solar and batteries that convert the sun’s energy to electricity. Electrons power much of his two-story home; it is heated and cooled with heat pumps, and Goodson and his wife cook meals on an induction range. Incredibly well-insulated, the entire home is heated by a small wood stove.
Despite also having initial concerns about her husband’s off-the-grid aspirations, Katie Goodson is a convert as well – especially after the lights stayed on during an intense storm that knocked their neighbors’ electricity out.
“I would never go back,” she told CNN. “When I tell co-workers or neighbors that we live off-grid and they see the house, they’re always like, ‘Whoa, this isn’t what I was expecting!’ It’s really fun surprising people; I live a totally normal life.”
The Goodsons are part of a small but growing number of homeowners who are choosing to build energy-efficient “panelized” homes that are pre-made in a factory. The homes are better for the climate, and although they have a high upfront cost, several homeowners say their energy savings, quality of life and overall cost of living has greatly improved since moving in.
Read more at the link in our bio.
📸: CNN; Tim Buntel and Cynthia Graber; John Hession Photography
A record £105 billion climate resilience pipeline has been identified across global cities, signalling an accelerating shift toward sustainable construction and green infrastructure. The data released by CDP illustrates how both embodied carbon and whole life carbon are now central to city investment strategies. Nature-based solutions, eco-friendly construction, and low carbon building projects feature heavily as investors prioritise environmental sustainability in construction. With a 22% increase in project numbers over the past year, the sector is moving rapidly toward green construction that integrates whole life carbon assessment and lifecycle assessment processes to secure long-term performance and investor confidence.
Across the UK, the Midlands is emerging as a significant hub for sustainable building design. Regional efforts focus on retrofitting existing stock with low carbon construction materials and resource efficiency in construction. Developers are adopting sustainable building practices aligned with BREEAM and its forthcoming BREEAM v7 framework to quantify the carbon footprint of construction and improve building lifecycle performance. The drive for net zero whole life carbon outcomes underpins this momentum, demonstrating how regional strategies contribute to the broader agenda of decarbonising the built environment. Such approaches demonstrate that sustainable architecture and low-impact construction are becoming essential to the UK’s net zero carbon ambition.
At a corporate level, the uptake of validated climate targets continues to rise. The Science Based Targets initiative reports significant growth in companies integrating life cycle cost analysis and whole life carbon considerations into their net zero carbon buildings strategies. The growing adoption of eco-design for buildings links sustainability to economic resilience, showing that life cycle thinking in construction directly supports profitability. As sustainable design becomes a commercial imperative, frameworks like environmental product declarations (EPDs) are reinforcing transparency across supply chains and influencing investment priorities in both public and private sectors.
The Transition Finance Council’s new draft guidance on funding the sustainable transformation of hard-to-abate industries marks another milestone. If implemented next spring, it will unlock investment channels for renewable building materials and circular economy in construction models. Financial institutions are responding by supporting circular construction strategies and end-of-life reuse in construction to lower embodied carbon in materials and accelerate the transition to carbon neutral construction. The policy focus on low embodied carbon materials demonstrates an understanding that achieving net zero whole life carbon requires aligning capital flows with measurable environmental outcomes.
Despite strong momentum, the construction industry faces a persistent workforce challenge. Training providers warn of a shortfall in apprentices capable of delivering low carbon design, sustainable material specification, and high-quality implementation of green building materials. This shortage could slow progress towards energy-efficient buildings and resource-efficient design objectives that underpin sustainable urban development. The race to reduce the environmental impact of construction will depend on addressing skills gaps alongside continued innovation in sustainable building design and the circular economy. The underlying message remains clear—the global construction sector’s carbon footprint reduction relies on practical delivery as much as visionary policy.
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