Skip to main content

A Practical Guide to Climate-resilient Buildings & Communities

  • Published on July 23, 2021
This UNEP publication demonstrates how buildings and community spaces can be constructed to increase their resilience to climate change.

On the 6th of July 2021, UNEP launched A Practical Guide to Climate-resilient Buildings & Communities, a report which demonstrates how buildings and community spaces can be constructed to increase their resilience to climate change, especially in developing countries where structures are largely self-built. The publication provides an overview of the fundamental types of interventions at the building scale, including the use of nature-based solutions. 

The buildings and construction sector is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for 38 per cent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. At the same time, we are already experiencing pressure on living conditions and an increase in damage to assets and asset value from extreme weather events; notably in coastal areas where the majority of the world’s population lives. The expected impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, heat waves, droughts, and cyclones, will increasingly affect the built environment and in turn the society as a whole. 

Recent research predicts that by 2050, 1.6 billion urban dwellers will be regularly exposed to extreme high temperatures and over 800 million people living in more than 570 cities will be vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal flooding (C40, 2018). When ill-suited to their local environment and strongly exposed to extreme climate conditions, buildings become drivers of vulnerability, rather than providing shelter, leading to both human tolls and economic losses. Low-income, informal, over-crowded and ill-planned settlements face the highest risk from climate change. 

Adaptation in the buildings and construction sector is still in its early stages and efforts need to be rapidly scaled up to cope with increasingly intense climate change impacts. 

This practical guide offers construction solutions to adapt to a range of different risks in various climates. For instance, it shows us how to reduce indoor heat in hot and arid climates, or how to mitigate cyclone impacts on buildings in hot and humid climates. Importantly, the report also provides us with a highly practical checklist that should be considered by government officers and development practitioners when undertaking a new building project. 

The guidance has been developed because there is a recognized need to understand good practices for climate-resilient buildings in communities that may suffer from a deficit of professionally trained architects, engineers, and other practitioners. Therefore, this note is written for a broad audience, including those with little experience in the building and construction industries. 

READ THE REPORT

 

 

 

 

A recording of the launch event can be found here.

You might also be Interested in