Lendlease among leaders calling for reduction to embodied emissions

17 November 2021

Representatives of Lendlease, Stora Enso, Google, WEB Limited Group, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Green Building Council have called on governments and industry to make urgent commitments to tackle climate change and achieve a net zero society. Source: Timberbiz

Leading voices from the building sector came together to call on world governments and the industry to reduce the sector’s environmental impact and accelerate its contribution to fight against climate change through addressing embodied emissions.

The organisations represented in the COP 26 event: “How can construction contribute to solving the climate crisis?”, called on national and subnational governments around the world to adopt a life cycle approach to the reduction of emissions from buildings, and ensure that embodied emissions get addressed from the early stages of planning and building design. And also that businesses in the building sector to commit to radical collaboration across the value chain in order to develop, promote and adopt sustainable building practices that achieve the reduction of embodied carbon in buildings at scale and without delay.

“ Most of these embodied emissions are released before the building is used and so the industry has a duty to do better for the planet, for all of us, and we call upon the world’s governments to support us in doing so with regulations and building standards fit for the modern world,” said Lars Völkel, Executive Vice President Stora Enso Wood Products.

“As an industry we have low-carbon and circular solutions that contribute to net-zero buildings, cities and states today. Solutions that contribute to solving the climate crisis, rather than intensifying it. We are at a tipping point in history, and the decisions we make now will impact human lives and the environment for decades to come.”

Hosted by Stora Enso the panel included: