Low carbon & resilient built environment
The building sector accounts for significant global energy-related CO2 emissions. This makes the global decarbonisation of buildings and the construction sector a key priority. At the same time, the resilience of settlements and buildings is becoming a pressing issue due to the increasing risks associated with climate change and natural hazards.
In a rapidly urbanised world, where the building stock is expected to double in Asia and Africa, the building sector is directly and indirectly responsible for 38 per cent of global energy-related CO2 emissions (UNEP 2020), making the global decarbonisation of the building and construction sector a key priority.
At the same time, the resilience of settlements and buildings is becoming a pressing issue due to the increasing risks associated with climate change and natural hazards in urban areas, such as rising sea levels, storm surges, heatwaves, flooding or earthquakes.
In the humanitarian context, it is equally important to ensure that the environmental and climate footprint of humanitarian operations is as small as possible (greening humanitarian aid) and that a build-back-better (BBB) approach is applied.
🧺Themes and potential focus areas
- Climate-resilient buildings and urban planning and development (promotion of policies, standards, and building codes related to energy efficiency and thermal comfort in buildings; the upgrading of existing areas; promotion of the settlement and BBB approaches)
- Low-carbon building materials such as low-carbon cement and bricks, and reuse of building materials
- Reducing vulnerability to natural hazards and potential climate impacts through reconstruction and building back better
- Constructing greener and more resilient structures and conducting site planning for refugee camps
- Avoiding and minimising potential negative environmental and climate impacts of SDC operations in humanitarian aid settings, and addressing humanitarian crises related to environment degradation and climate change (climate migration)
💡Project examples
- Strengthening Capacities for Energy Efficiency in buildings in Latin America (CEELA): Strengthened capacities and regulatory frameworks in energy efficient and thermally comfortable housing in Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Peru contribute to reduced CO2 emissions and at the same time improve the quality of life, resilience and health of building occupants including economically disadvantaged groups.
- Passive Cooling for a Low Carbon Built Environment (BeCool): BeCool aims to improve access to cooling through passive measures in buildings in urban India to reduce the impact of heatwaves on human health and productivity, while decreasing energy requirements, costs and greenhouse gas emissions linked to active cooling.
- Indo-Swiss Building Energy Efficiency Project (BEEP): This project mainstreams and scales up energy-efficient and thermally comfortable building design in India for both commercial and residential buildings through strengthened competencies of building design developers, integration in architecture and engineering education, and support of regulatory frameworks for building design.
Further Projects
- Strengthening Capacities for Energy Efficiency in buildings in Latin America (CEELA)
- Building Energy Efficiency Project (BEEP)
- Capacity Building for Low-carbon and Climate Resilient City Development (CapaCities)
- LC3 – A sustainable alternative for the cement industry
- Passive Cooling for a Low Carbon Built Environment (BeCool)
- PROECCO project
