Buildings and Climate Global Forum in Paris organized by the French government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) gathered national ministers to discuss about decarbonizing the building sector.
Stora Enso contributed to the Forum in several ways.
Photo: Arboretum - WO2 Patrick Raffin
Decarbonizing the building sector is critical to lowering emissions across all of society, as buildings generate about 37% of total global energy-related CO2 emissions. But despite the construction and operation of buildings being such major emissions sources, neither the buildings sector nor the world overall is on track to reach the 2015 Paris Agreement's target of limiting global warming to at most 2-degreeC, according to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report.
This is why this month's Buildings and Climate Global Forum in Paris was so important. Organized by the French government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), this Forum was the first global gathering of national ministers to focus on decarbonizing the building sector. The Buildings Forum continued the momentum from last December's United Nations-organized COP28 Climate Change Conference in Dubai. COP28 featured the launch of the Buildings Breakthrough, an initiative backed by 28 countries aimed at making near-zero emission and climate-resilient buildings the new global normal by 2030. What a powerful statement that buildings need to become more sustainable, and quickly!
I'm proud that Stora Enso contributed to the Forum in several ways. Ultimately, the two-day Buildings Forum culminated with its own bold statement of determination: the Chaillot Declaration. With this, 70 countries - including Austria, France, Germany the UK and the United States - committed to establishing and implementing 'inclusive decarbonization and resilience pathways for buildings at all levels' to support the attainment of the Paris Agreement's climate targets. This commitment includes important references to increasing the use of biomaterials; enhancing carbon storage in cities (such as through wood and other biomaterials); addressing emissions over buildings' whole life cycle and that governments need to lead by example through public procurement. The Chaillot Declaration also encompasses upskilling to enable more people to gain from green jobs.
Here, I share some of my key reflections from this first of what is intended to be a regular event to help guide the buildings sector to a sustainable future.
Firstly, it was very positive that 'whole life carbon' was brought up in so many panel sessions.
This term refers to emissions from both the emissions embodied in the production of building materials as well as construction/renovation processes as well as the emissions from operating buildings (e.g., lighting and heating). Consideration of both of these dimensions of whole life carbon - embodied and operational emissions - needs to be integrated into all policies relating to the built environment, for both new and renovated buildings.
Over the last five years or so, the work of such groups as the World Green Building Council - of which Stora Enso is a member of the Europe Regional Network - has elevated the topic of whole life carbon amongst policy makers, and whole life carbon's popularity at the Forum is evidence of how much such work has collectively achieved. Senior business leaders also have whole life carbon top of mind, as evidenced in the CEO Roundtable for which Stora Enso's President and CEO Hans Sohlstrom was selected to contribute.
However, while progress with addressing whole life carbon is being made it was clear from the Forum's panels that there is still much work to do on this topic, particularly with aligning the data and standards necessary for international accounting of embodied emissions. That countries are accounting for whole life carbon in different ways inhibits comparability across borders, a situation that itself is not sustainable.
Secondly, it was important that the Forum highlighted the important role of bio-based materials - especially wood - in decarbonizing the building sector.
Wood is perhaps the oldest building material. But it's also very niche: wood-based construction products have about a 3% market share in the EU construction sector, according to a 2023 European Commission report. Still, bio-based building materials can have a large climate impact, especially that they are a climate solution already available and ready to be scaled up in many parts of the world.
As was noted during the Forum, bio-based materials can lead to building sector emission savings 'of up to 40 percent by 2050 in many regions, even when compared to savings from low-carbon concrete and steel,' according to a 2023 UNEP report. Plus, wood is the only major building material that provides significant, long-term carbon storage. Of course, a pre-requisite for using any material is the need to source it in sustainable ways.
During a Forum session on bio-based materials, executives with major international developers Sumitomo Forestry Group and Lendlease, along with architecture firm HOK, described the important roles for timber and bio-based materials in their buildings. 'Investors and clients increasingly understand the value of buildings that are low carbon and have a positive impact on nature,' said On Nakagawa, President of Sumitomo Forestry Group Europe. 'It's critical to their [environmental, social and governance] ESG reputation.'
To help governments smartly increase the use of bio-based materials, during this session the City Handbook for Carbon Neutral Buildings was launched by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, Arup and Built by Nature. I encourage all city officials to review this manual's opportunities and recommendations to increase the uptake of bio-based materials.
Thirdly, public procurement is necessary to help build the markets of low-emission construction products.
Several panels raised the need for governments to smartly leverage the significant money they are spending on buildings and infrastructure to simultaneously advance environmental goals via so-called green public procurement.
In some contexts, taking a material neutral public procurement approach works best. But it's also important and necessary to prioritise certain high-impact technologies, such as wood, given its small market share. Similarly, governments are promoting electric cars over other technologies.
The host country of France was highlighted for public procurement and other initiatives to accelerate the use of bio-based materials in buildings. For example, the French government aims for 50 percent of new public buildings to be built from bio-based materials. Also, under the government's Low-Carbon Label program to support the financing of projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, property developers using bio-based materials in new buildings can sell carbon credits based on the carbon stored in those materials.
Finally, there were clear calls for collaboration and faster action throughout the value chain.
During the sessions, representatives of all parts of the building sector described how they - separately and together - can best contribute to the decarbonisation of the sector.
Such opportunities and needs require building sector stakeholders to work together more effectively and in new and different ways. I'm glad that Stora Enso was part of two great examples of such collaboration at the Forum and at a related side event. During the Forum's exposition, at which companies staffed booths to present climate solutions. Stora Enso joined with Swedish property developer Folkhem and General Architecture to present Cederhusen, a large-scale, timber-framed housing development in Stockholm. As a pre-Forum event, we collaborated with French low-carbon developer WO2, real estate investor ICAMAP and other partners to host a site visit at Arboretum, the largest wood office campus in Europe.
Furthermore, Stora Enso contributed to the development of and endorsed the World Business Council for Sustainable Developent's (WBCSD) Market Transformation Action Agenda that was launched at the Forum. This agenda calls for 'deep and radical collaboration' along the built environmental value chain to overcome key barriers hindering the achievements of a low-emission built environment. I'm looking forward to how this agenda's action points will ripple through the buildings sector.
Now that the Buildings and Climate Global Forum has ended, I'm proud that 70 governments committed to the Chaillot Declaration as a basis for achieving a sustainable built environment. And I'm quite pleased that leaders from so many companies and organizations prioritized this opportunity to join together to find the common ground necessary to lowering building sector emissions, and in doing so sent the message to the attending governments that a decarbonized buildings sector is supported by many businesses.
I and all of us at Stora Enso look forward to continuing to lead and collaborate on the building sector's decarbonisation journey.
Part of the global bioeconomy, Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable products in packaging, biomaterials and wooden construction, and one of the largest private forest owners in the world. We believe that everything that is made from fossil-based materials today can be made from a tree tomorrow. Stora Enso has approximately 20,000 employees and our sales in 2023 were EUR 9.4 billion. Stora Enso shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy (STEAV, STERV) and Nasdaq Stockholm AB (STE A, STE R). In addition, the shares are traded in the USA as ADRs and Ordinary Shares (SEOAY, SEOFF, SEOJF).
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