How Buildings Will Play a Role in Fighting Climate Change – COP26
It's been a few weeks since COP26 came to an end; there was a lot of noise and press about it in the lead-up and while the event was on, but now that the dust has settled, what were the outcomes for our industry? Were there agreements made that will directly impact the construction and building industry? Will it force positive change?
We have watched many of the keynote speakers and panel discussions from the event and have summarised them below.
Firstly, it is clear we cannot rely on human reaction all of the time; we can't expect every person to remember to turn the light off as they leave a room; this has to be automated. The good news is we have lots of great technology solutions that solve these issues. However, efficiency is the first renewable; currently, there is a lot of talk about technology, but we need to get the basics right first.
The construction industry is slow-moving, there are a lot of excuses around change being too difficult, too expensive, and there is a need for upskilling. However, building regulations are slowly improving, but we need a change in policy to really drive this change and stop the excuses. With the right incentives, the construction industry can change. Stakeholders need to be educated about embodied carbon, and we need to be resisting demolishing where possible – retrofitting is the way forward. The most sustainable buildings are the ones that are already built – let's optimise them.
We need the data to gather insight and determine where buildings currently are on the scale of energy efficiency; only then can improvements be made – measure, report, reduce.
Ultimately, we are making changes in the right direction; we have currently reduced emissions by 27% in the UK compared to 1990, but there needs to be a 100% reduction by 2050 – we still have a long way to go, and worldwide emissions have grown by 60% since 1990.
So, what were the headline outcomes?
Many feel that agreements didn't go far enough and didn't have the level of ambition required, however:
Deforestation in 85% of the world will be stopped by 2030.
Methane emissions will be reduced to 30% by 2030.
Finance has been upped to support clean technology and assist low-income nations towards renewable transitions.
COP26 was the first-ever COP to explicitly target action against fossil fuels, calling for a "phasedown of unabated coal" and "phase-out" of "inefficient" fossil-fuel subsidies.
(NBS, Webinar: COP26: NBS' key takeaways, 2021).
We spoke with Rob Mitchell from SSE Energy Solutions – Smart Buildings on our podcast. SSE was one of the primary sponsors of COP26 and Rob is very passionate about the decarbonisation of buildings. You can listen to the episode here.
SSE state that:
28% of UK carbon emissions are from operational energy use in buildings. Starting tomorrow, this could be reduced by 20-30%, but it isn't happening!
80% of the buildings that will be in use in 2050 have already been built. Why is there so much focus on new build and not renovation?
We discussed this with Rob on the podcast along with many other important points.
Recently a new British Standard for Building Performance Evaluation has also been drafted. This aims to set out a framework for stakeholders to follow and has energy efficiency measures embedded throughout. We summarise the key points of the standard in this blog.
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