2024 – A Consequential Year for the Building Sector

By: Dr Peter Graham

2024 is shaping up to be a consequential year for the buildings sector. The Global Status Report on Buildings and Construction released in March shows that emissions from the sector continue to rise despite a significant increase in global commitments to decarbonize the sector. Even as that happens, health and resilience, embodied emissions and supply chain decarbonization are increasingly taking center stage in building policies. GBPN’s initiatives and projects will continue supporting governments with the ‘how to’ of building policies.

Global: GBPN participated as a member of the Breakthrough Advisory Board in the first ever Global Forum on Buildings and Climate for construction ministers hosted by the governments of France and Morocco in Paris on 7th and 8th March. We expect it will signify the mainstream acceptance that Paris Agreement mitigation and adaptation targets are impossible to reach without building sector decarbonization, and highlight the policy opportunities and support available for countries to pursue ambitious reforms and ‘just transitions’. This agenda setting work provides a more cohesive global framework for action that we can leverage to further engage our Top 20 countries in implementation work that turns their commitments into achievements.

Indonesia: Our work in 2024 will focus on the development of a National Action Plan for Low Carbon Buildings with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. We will work with selected multiple local governments for the implementation of the action plan at sub-national level.

India: We had a significant breakthrough in India on New Year’s Eve, with the Bureau of Indian Standards confirming that they will appoint GBPN’s Local Expert Partner, Ashok B Lall Architects (ABLA)  to review the National Building Code and Indian Standards (IS) 8888:2020 for Affordable Housing to incorporate our Healthy Low-Carbon Housing guidelines. This will reduce emissions and improve thermal comfort and resilience for millions of Indians. GBPN India will also complete the e-compliance platform for the residential building energy code for Gujarat, along with a demand-side management living lab, and work directly with housing developers who intend to have made zero-carbon commitments to provide value-chain decarbonization roadmaps.

Africa & China: We are investigating program development in Africa, and looking forward to commencing our program in China, supporting four provinces to implement their low-carbon construction policies, and providing capacity to enable zero-carbon building targets to be included in the 15th five year plan.

Climate change is a key election issue in both Indonesia and India who go to the polls in 2024. We are anticipating that election outcomes will reinforce commitments to climate action in each country, and further increase demand for GBPNs policy support through to 2030 and beyond.