While the appeals court in The Hague ruled that Shell is obliged to limit its CO2 emissions — in order to protect the planet from dangerous climate change — it said there is insufficient agreement in climate science on a specific reduction percentage that an individual company such as Shell should adhere to. As such, it dismissed a previous ruling that imposed steep carbon emissions reductions on the British oil and gas giant.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands, an environmental campaigning group that brought the case against Shell, expressed disappointment with the outcome.
"This hurts," said director Donald Pols. "At the same time, we see that this case has ensured that major polluters are not inviolable and has further fueled the debate about their responsibility in combating dangerous climate change. That is why we're going to continue to tackle big polluters, like Shell."
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Nature and water are now shaping core commercial and policy decisions in sustainable construction. In the UK, the proposed relaxation of Biodiversity Net Gain rules has triggered warnings from the UK Green Building Council and hundreds of construction firms that such a move would undermine investor confidence and the national transition toward environmental sustainability in construction. Developers have already embedded whole life carbon assessment, life cycle cost analysis and circular economy principles into planning, design, and procurement. Disrupting these frameworks could increase the carbon footprint of construction, delay projects, and erode progress toward net zero carbon buildings.
Water stewardship is becoming integral to sustainable building design across global markets. Urban developers are incorporating resilience to drought and flooding into low carbon building strategies, supported by green infrastructure and eco-design for buildings that reduce embodied carbon in materials. The growing threat to glaciers and polar ice is now influencing insurance and asset valuation, making life cycle thinking in construction an essential discipline for managing climate-related risk.
Layoffs across carbon capture enterprises reinforce the need for immediate decarbonisation within the built environment through material efficiency, adaptive reuse, and low embodied carbon materials. The construction sector is prioritising renewable building materials, resource efficiency in construction and sustainable building practices that deliver measurable reductions in embodied carbon. These measures align with BREEAM and BREEAM v7 standards and strengthen pathways to net zero whole life carbon performance.
Firms that adopt sustainable material specification, implement end-of-life reuse in construction and apply circular construction strategies demonstrate long-term value creation within a low carbon design framework. Such practices support carbon footprint reduction, enhance building lifecycle performance, and accelerate the shift toward carbon neutral construction. By treating ecology and hydrology as structural parameters, not optional aesthetics, the industry is defining a future in which sustainable design, circular economy in construction and whole life carbon management drive resilience, profitability, and genuine sustainability.
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