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Construction sector accounts for 50% of global resource extraction, making it the most material-intensive sector in the world. This LeadIT brief adopts a value-chain approach to understand where major challenges and opportunities for sustainability occur, and how these could be shaped through decisions made at different stages.
As part of the Stockholm+50 international meeting in June 2022, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Stockholm+50 Secretariat have partnered to highlight how global value chains must change for a more sustainable future. As a contribution to this work, the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT) Secretariat (hosted by SEI) has synthesized three influential reports, from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Resource Panel (IRP) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP). This synthesis, with added insights from LeadIT research, distils the challenges that must be addressed and steps that could transform the global construction value chain.
The world’s growing global population and increasing urbanization will require better infrastructure with fewer environmental and climate impacts in order to reach the climate mitigation targets set out in the Paris Agreement. Currently, the construction sector alone accounts for 50% of global resource extraction, making it the most material-intensive sector in the world; it contributes to a number of sustainability crises, such as biodiversity loss, water scarcity and deforestation.
In this brief we adopt a value-chain approach to understand where major challenges and opportunities for sustainability occur in the construction and buildings sectors, and how these could be shaped through decisions made at different stages. Based on this analysis, we present policy recommendations for a sustainable transition in the construction sector.
Policy interventions will need to engage and influence multiple stakeholders at different stages along the value chain, and at local, national and global scales. We identify five high-level, interconnected areas where concerted interventions have the potential to bring about a step-change in the transition of the construction sector: transparent and systematic data, material efficiency and innovation, green public procurement, and urban planning.
Project / The Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT) aims to enable the transition of heavy industry towards net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Perspective / How can the steel and cement industry reach net-zero by 2050? The Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative by UNIDO is driving industrial climate action.
SEI brief / Based on three major new studies on the topic of steel decarbonization, this brief explores how the steel sector could achieve net zero by 2050 through policy.
SEI brief / This assessment looks at the latest round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the progress made in raising industry transition ambition levels.
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