Building for Everyone puts people back at the heart of the built environment
8 JUNE 2022 — “Four billion people are vulnerable today to impacts of climate change, and the World Meteorological Organisation reports we have a 50 per cent chance of breaching 1.5°C of warming over the next five years … right now, the energy and cost of living crisis is already disproportionately affecting our societies’ most vulnerable people,” wrote Cristina Gamboa, CEO of World Green Building Council (WorldGBC).
Dense neighbourhood in coastal Jakarta, showing uneven development of the built environment. Image by Yanis Ladjouzi from Pixabay
As the built environment globally is responsible for almost 40 per cent of global energy-related carbon emissions and 50 per cent of extracted materials, leaders need to decarbonise economies and provide social economic benefits for the most vulnerable communities.
This call to accelerate the uptake of solutions for low-carbon and highly resilient built environments is at the heart of WorldGBC’s 13th annual World Green Building Week, which will be held on 12–16 September 2022 alongside a campaign titled #BuildingforEveryone.
Led by the network of over 70 national Green Building Councils and their 36,000 members, the week-long event will place people back at the heart of the built environment by demonstrating how the network is catalysing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Events will be hosted across the world to share examples of #BuildingforEveryone—built environments that drive climate action and help communities and economies to thrive.
Three themes will highlight how the built environment can support the UN SDGs:
Building for the planet
The climate crisis is also a global health crisis. Unless there is urgent action taken to reduce climate breakdown now, the health of millions of people will be negatively affected by increased temperatures, infectious diseases will spread faster, and it will be harder to grow the food we need to live healthily.
Building for communities
1.6 billion people will lack access to safe, adequate housing by 2025. To combat the global cost of living crisis, urgent action is needed now to address inadequate, unaffordable housing and enhance equity, economic productivity and environmental sustainability.
Building for economies
Sustainable built environments bolster economies’ most important asset—nature. Accelerating a more circular and regenerative economy will create new jobs and savings on energy bills. Urgent action is needed now to advance economies that are more productive and resilient for communities and the planet.
