International Survey on GHG Emissions in the Built Environment

The primary objective of the survey is to provide a bottom-up and more regionally specific view of possible GHG mitigation measures to complement the many top-down policies developed by governments and large non-profit organizations. We will shortly be seeking the cooperation of construction-sector professional associations around the world to help to distribute and promote the survey. Analysis of data will be led by the University of Malta, but other relevant organizations will also have access to the raw data produced through this project. The content and structure of the survey was examined in a series of workshops held in conjunction with several research-oriented conferences in Europe during the first half of 2016, and valuable suggestions from those sessions influenced the final content of the survey. English or French can be used in responding to the survey, and we plan to add additional key languages in the future. The project has been developed by the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE) on behalf of three other international organizations including the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment), the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), and the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, (FIDIC). We sent it out as a pilot survey to a representative group of contacts and had quite a good and interesting set of responses, which you can see in the attached short document. Subsequent to the pilot survey, Dr. Ruben Paul Borg (University of Malta) agreed to take the lead in preparing a web-based version of the survey for a full implementation of the survey amongst professionals around the world. We are now ready to launch the modified survey, which offers respondents a choice of using the web-based or Excel versions of the survey, in English or French. The project is at the launch stage, and it is therefore premature to discuss impacts or results. We strongly encourage colleagues in universities, NGOs or professional associations in the sector to contact us, if you have a possibility to promote the survey, or to distribute the resulting analysis in your region and/or to your membership. Please contact Dr. Ruben Paul Borg at or Nils Larsson at so that we can discuss ways of working together.