The Built Environment

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The driver for change in the built environment is the climate crisis and specifically the decarbonization of buildings. The subsequent demand created by this change driver coupled with the movement toward the electrification of commercial real estate has removed the constraints to innovation and revealed that building envelopes and facades are ripe for change.

Buildings generate 40% of annual global CO2 emissions. Of those total emissions, building operations are responsible for 28% annually, while building materials and construction (typically referred to as embodied carbon) are responsible for an additional 11% annually.

Approximately two-thirds of the global building area that exists today will still exist in 2040. Without widespread existing building decarbonization across the globe, these buildings will still be emitting CO2 emissions in 2040 and we will not achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.

Global building floor area is expected to double by 2060. To accommodate the largest wave of urban growth in human history, we expect to add 2.4 trillion ft2 (230 billion m2) of new floor area to the global building stock, the equivalent of adding an entire New York City to the world, every month, for 40 years.