WCEF2021 Accelerator Session: Making the Business Case for Advancing a Low-carbon, Circular Built Environment

How can we make the business case to advance the circular built environment? What are the policy, investment, and market levers that can support the transition? How do these efforts align with goals for net zero while creating new economic and employment opportunities?

In the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Goal 9 deals with resilient infrastructure and sustainable industrialization. Goal 11 aims at resilient and sustainable cities. Target 11.c looks for a proper indicator for sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials. Targets 11.b calls for policies and plans towards resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change and resilience to disasters. Target 13.1 strengthens resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters.

The work in One Planet Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme (SBC) focuses on circular built environment and responsibly sourced building materials.

SBC presented key findings from their global survey on circularity in the UN 2030 Agenda in the WCEF Accelerator session Making the Business Case for Advancing a Low-carbon, Circular Built Environment 15 September 2021. Based on 175 responses from all continents, SDG11 Cities, SDG12 Sustainable Consumption and Production and SDG13 Climate Change were identified the most important ones in all regions. They were followed by SDG8 Economy and SDG9 especially in the industrialized northern hemisphere whereas SDG6 Water and SDG7 Energy scored highest particularly in the Global South.