In pricey Los Angeles, where single-family homes under $1 million are hard to come by, even destructive fires haven't deterred willing buyers.
This month, a burned lot in affluent Pacific Palisades sold for nearly $1.2 million — hundreds of thousands over its asking price — despite the land remaining uninhabitable. In the days following that sale, more burned properties have changed hands in the Palisades and Altadena — neighborhoods on different sides of a city devastated in January by wildfires.
In the aftermath of one of the costliest disasters in US history, governments and communities often push to quickly rebuild. However, some economists and environmentalists reject a typical response to rebuilding. As climate change intensifies natural disasters, local governments should think proactively, buying up damaged property from homeowners in disaster-prone areas and building "buffer zones" to better prepare for when the next extreme weather event hits, said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College.
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📸 : Fred Greaves/Reuters
The global construction industry is closely monitoring outcomes from COP30 in Belém as debates over adaptation finance and emissions targets intensify. The summit’s negotiation gridlock between developed and developing nations exposes an ongoing failure to bridge the funding gap required for climate-resilient and sustainable construction across vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh. The absence of robust financial frameworks is delaying progress in carbon neutral construction and the implementation of Whole Life Carbon Assessment methodologies critical to achieving net zero Whole Life Carbon performance in buildings facing extreme weather risks.
Brazil’s role as both host nation and custodian of the Amazon shapes new tensions between deforestation, low carbon design policy ambitions, and land-use reforms that threaten global carbon footprint reduction progress. Any weakening of environmental safeguards could undermine decarbonising the built environment strategies and erode the circular economy in construction principles that underpin resource efficiency in construction initiatives.
In the UK, the Environmental Audit Committee has reaffirmed that nature-positive planning regulations are not impeding housing supply, strengthening the argument for sustainable building design and eco-design for buildings within urban policy frameworks. The Committee’s position supports the expansion of green infrastructure and sustainable urban development through data-led lifecycle assessment and Life Cycle Cost analysis tools linked to environmental product declarations (EPDs).
Industry leaders continue to push for measurable progress beyond declarations. Adoption of BREEAM v7 and low embodied carbon materials specifications signals growing attention to the embodied carbon challenge and the environmental impact of construction. Better integration of circular construction strategies and end-of-life reuse in construction practices would enhance building lifecycle performance while advancing the Circular Economy transition.
As the built environment sector moves toward net zero carbon buildings, practitioners recognise that tangible decarbonisation relies on aligning public policy, private finance, and innovation in sustainable building practices. The momentum from COP30 underscores that environmental sustainability in construction is not merely policy rhetoric but a technical and economic imperative demanding global coordination.
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