This week Edwin Ndeke @edwinoblak will share his series on recent flooding in...

Every Day Climate Change 2 years ago

This week Edwin Ndeke @edwinoblak will share his series on recent flooding in Kenya: Edwin writes: In March all through to May Kenya saw some of its most catastrophic weather for years. Torrential rains caused devastating floods, at least 228 people died, thousands were displaced and nearly 2,000 schools were affected. Poorer communities were disproportionately affected. Mathare , with roughly 70,000 residents, is just one part of the densely populated “informal settlement” in Nairobi, and people are still reeling from the impact of the flood. Unplanned or illegal housing developments that obstruct the flow of water, settlements on riverbanks, and poor drainage systems worsened flood impacts Because About 70% of Nairobi’s residents live in informal settlements, which occupy about 5% of the city’s land. Congested living conditions push the poorest residents to the margins of the settlement, where they are most vulnerable. These photos paint a picture of how important it his to fight climate change & effects it has to humans. Captions: 1. Jane Kalekye at the door of her flooded house in the Mathare Slums on 01/05/2024 as the East african country experiences heavy long rains in Nairobi, Kenya 2. Jane Kalekye stands opposite her flooded house in Mathare Slums on 01/05/2024,Nairobi, Kenya as the country experiences heavy long rains. 3. Jane Kalekye and her son, Francis ochieng,help their neighbour remove a sofa that has blocked her house in Mathare Slums on 01/05/2024, Nairobi, Kenya as the country experiences heavy long rains. #climatechange #globalwarming #climatecrisis #Kenya #Africa #eastafrica #flooding #torrentialrain #rain #poverty #informalsettlements

layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 10 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 £1.6m 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 £10bn in economic gains and more than £7 of benefit for every £1 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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