COP21 World Buildings Day - USGBC Commits to Scaling LEED Green Buildings to More Than 5 Billion Square Feet Over Five Years

As a part of World Buildings Day at COP21, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced on December 3rd that it will commit to scaling green buildings to more than 5 billion square feet (478 million square meters) over the next five years through the LEED and EDGE green building rating systems. 

Buildings are an excellent target for a climate change focus in reducing materials and energy use, as approximately 30% of greenhouse gases globally relate to the construction or operation of the built environment.  According to the United Naitonal Environmental Programme (UNEP), "The economic, health, and social benefits of sustainable buildings are significant. Buildings provide shelter, places to live, work, learn and socialize, directly affecting our daily lives. Providing more than 50 per cent of global wealth, and one of the largest employers at local level, the sector also offers a path to poverty alleviation." Put a little dfferently, buildings offer tremendous opportunities for occupants and commuities as an essential part of a transition to a greener and more just economy.  

“As we gather around the imperatives to address climate change at COP21, we know that buildings must continue be a key focus area for countries to reach carbon emissions reduction goals,” said Roger Platt, president, USGBC. “By encouraging the use of green building rating systems like LEED and EDGE in both the public and private sectors, countries can log immediate and measurable reductions of these emissions as their building stock uses less energy and water, creates less waste, saves money and creates a healthier environment for everyone.”

Other Buildings Day highlights:

• The Gobal Alliance for Buildings and Construction was launched with the goal of scaling up low-carbon deveopment in the secto. Eighteen countries including Austria, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Senegal, Singapore, Sweden, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, the US, and over 60 organisations are part of the alliance.

• Initiatve Member World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) icommitted to a ‘global market transformation’ to achieve both net zero carbon new building and the energy efficiency retrofit of existing stock by 2050.
• The 'Moving towards net zero buildings' commitment, was been signed by 16 leading organisations including Acciona, British Land, Doosan, Ferrovial, GlaxoSmithKline, Hammerson, Heathrow, Interface, JLL, Kingfisher, Land Securities, Lloyd’s Banking Group, Philips, Skanska, Sky, Tesco.
• Tech giant Google joined the RE100 global; renewable energy initiative with a target to triple its purchase of renewables by 2025 and a long term goal to power all of its operations with clean energy.
• Mastercard and C40 Cities announced a new partnership on the fourth day of COP21 and they aim to create a knowledge transfer network for urban transport innovations.

For more information:

http://www.usgbc.org/articles/us-green-building-council-commits-scaling-leed-green-buildings-more-5-billion-square-feet-o

http://web.unep.org/climatechange/buildingsday/why-buildings

http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news/cop21_day_4_the_future_of_green_buildings

http://www.betterbuildgreen.org/cop21-commitments/