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Sustainable built environments for everyone, everywhere 2 Opening About World Green Building Council About #BuildingLife The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) is the largest and most influential local-regional- global action network, leading the transformation to sustainable and decarbonised built environments for everyone, everywhere. Together, with 75+ Green Building Councils and industry partners from all around the world, we are driving systemic changes to: ■ Address whole life carbon emissions of existing and new buildings ■ Enable resilient, healthy, equitable and inclusive places ■ Secure regenerative, resource efficient and waste-free infrastructure We work with businesses, organisations and governments to deliver on the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs). The Europe Regional Network (ERN) is a community of over 20 national Green Building Councils, 8 Regional Partners, and close to 5,000 members across Europe. Green Building Councils in the ERN are from both EU and non-EU countries. #BuildingLife is a project convening 10 European Green Building Councils to support the European Green Deal. These Green Building Councils galvanise climate action through national and regional decarbonisation roadmaps, which tackle the whole-life environmental impacts of the building and construction sector. #BuildingLife focuses not only on the operational emissions of buildings, but also the environmental impact of the manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life phases – often called embodied emissions. Tackling these emissions is essential to address the total impact of the built environment, and progress towards the European Green Deal’s aim of a climate neutral Europe by 2050. The Green Building Councils (GBCs) spearheading the project are: Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. #BuildingLife has received funding from the IKEA Foundation and Laudes Foundation as well as from European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Climate Foundation. #BuildingLife Funders
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Sustainable built environments for everyone, everywhere 3 Foreword “Green investing is a no-brainer for the building and construction sector; for mitigating against climate and financial risks, as well as creating better social value for our communities. Simply put, if you’re not investing in sustainable buildings now, then you’re not long-term investing. We need a deep systemic shift to transition financial flows towards decarbonised, resilient and equitable built environments. And I am proud of the work that our European Green Building Councils have been doing to accelerate this shift.” Cristina Gamboa, CEO, World Green Building Council “Green investing is key in the race to stop catastrophic climate change. The insurance industry is already facing losses due to multiplying climate hazards. Shifting current finance flows towards a decarbonised built environment is therefore critical and I welcome the work that WorldGBC and national GBCs have been doing to enable this.” Sean Kidney, Climate Bonds Initiative CEO & member of WorldGBC Board of Directors Team Lead author: Julie Emmrich Contributing authors: Stephen Richardson; Carolina Montano-Owen; Miles Rowland European member Green Building Councils and Regional Partners
