At the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow last November, these goals in reducing carbon emissions have taken center stage. For a range of industries, including aviation, shipping, health and autos, nations at the conference have pledged to aggressively reduce carbon emissions.
Construction firms and real estate developers will not be immune in the push toward net-zero emissions. After all, they account for as much as 50 percent of global carbon emissions on an annual basis, according to Saint-Gobain, a leading multinational manufacturer of construction materials.
RSM has identified three broad considerations for construction firms and property developers as they work to meet this challenge:
A study by Oxford Economics found that the 10 most used construction materials in Europe would produce an annual 518 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if no action is taken. That is the equivalent of approximately 35 percent of the total carbon waste produced by the continent.
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A construction supply chain is often filled with numerous complexities and hierarchies. These supply chains are often highly fragmented, with waste endemic in that fragmentation. Working to implement technology solutions and even alternative construction solutions, such as off-site manufacturing and 3-D printing, can help to eliminate waste, resulting in cleaner construction methods.
Governments are also using infrastructure spending – often a source of high carbon emissions – as a means of transitioning their economies to be more climate friendly. Congress recently passed a sweeping infrastructure package, which includes $21 billion for environmental remediation and $15 billion to improve the electrification of the vehicle fleet with initiatives like charging stations, and electric buses and ferries.
The larger push for sustainability, though, is in the $1.75 trillion social spending bill that would call for $550 billion in investment toward clean energy and climate change initiatives.
Even with these projects, though, annual total global climate finance spending would need to grow by 588 percent, to $4.35 trillion, to achieve many of the carbon-reduction goals laid out by 2030. Already, those investments nearly doubled from 2011-12 through 2019-20, according to the Climate Policy Initiative.
