Hours after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, the Biden administration moved to limit oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Oil drilling had been banned for decades in the Arctic refuge — a pristine natural region in northeast Alaska home to a wide range of threatened species. But a law passed during the first Trump administration required the federal government to hold two lease sales there for fossil fuel drilling. The first was in 2021 and was ultimately suspended and canceled by the Interior Department because of the lack of interest from the oil industry.
The Trump-era law required the second lease sale to be held before the end of 2024. The Biden administration signaled Wednesday it plans to move forward with a 400,000-acre auction — the lowest acreage it could legally offer.
It's one of the many ways the White House and administration are trying to protect some of Biden's biggest accomplishments while president, including his vast portfolio of action on climate change and the environment. Read more at the link in @cnnclimate's bio.
📸: Don Paulson/Jaynes Gallery/Adobe Stock
Digitalisation and decarbonisation are integrating at pace across sustainable construction. At Scotland’s Monklands project, digital workflows enable whole life carbon assessment and precision tracking of embodied carbon, cutting life cycle cost through predictive design and optimised offsite fabrication. The Durham initiative applying automated site assessment tools has accelerated approvals while reducing the carbon footprint of construction, aligning data efficiency with environmental sustainability in construction.
In Liverpool, biophilic eco-design for buildings demonstrates how sustainable building design is contributing to low carbon design and improved occupant wellbeing through living architecture that enhances green infrastructure. Government policy now links affordability with sustainability. Early measures from the Burnham administration suggest a commitment to decarbonising the built environment and net zero carbon buildings through incentives rooted in life cycle thinking in construction.
Regulatory pressure is mounting as agencies introduce more robust frameworks for carbon footprint reduction, reinforcing accountability across the industry. Material innovation remains central to progress. Enzyme‑based recycling and a £125 million facility for chemical reuse in Darlington indicate that circular economy in construction and circular construction strategies are moving into mainstream infrastructure.
These advances in low embodied carbon materials, renewable building materials, and green building products signal a shift towards carbon neutral construction supported by verifiable environmental product declarations (EPDs). Across digital tools, biomimetic systems, and progressive material science, sustainable building practices are redefining building lifecycle performance, embedding whole life carbon accountability into every stage. Efficiency, resilience, and ecology are converging to deliver net zero whole life carbon outcomes consistent with BREEAM v7 principles, confirming that sustainable design is now integral to construction’s economic and environmental logic.
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