At a concurrent session at ULI’s Virtual Spring Meeting, speakers made the business case for the importance of considering embodied carbon during development and construction, as well as explored how cities are creating policies to address embodied carbon and how real estate organizations have already started reducing carbon emissions.
Building on the leading sustainability work that ULI Greenprint member organizations have been implementing since 2009, the recently published ULI Blueprint for Green Real Estatereport helps real estate owners and investors create or accelerate a sustainability program, and developers looking for ways to integrate sustainability into their overall development strategies. In an on-demand session at the 2020 ULI Virtual Fall Meeting, two sustainability directors at Greenprint member companies interviewed one another about creating their own blueprint for green real estate at their respective organizations.
More than 70 cities worldwide have pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, with a wide range of policies addressing energy use and emissions in buildings under consideration. Even as COVID-19 upends daily life and business, communities including Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis are passing new climate policies.
Improved energy efficiency of class B and C office buildings can be achieved with relatively simple, lower-cost measures that not only enhance building performance, but also boost property values to make the buildings more competitive with class A space, new ULI research shows.
Embodied carbon refers to the emissions associated with manufacturing, transportation, and construction of building materials, as well as building disposal. As buildings become more efficient and emit less carbon during their operational lifetime, embodied carbon will become the majority share of building-related carbon emissions.
Many U.S. cities are developing aggressive sustainability targets. Because the real estate sector accounts for half or more of their carbon emissions, cities are looking for strategies to engage the industry as part of their climate mitigation plans. The second ULI City and Real Estate Sustainability Summit, held at the 2018 Fall Meeting in Boston, explored what makes a successful public/private partnership and how the real estate industry has used them in the past.
With buildings accounting for 75 percent of U.S. electricity consumption, achieving these commitments will require the active participation and cooperation of the real estate sector. However, many U.S. cities are still in the very early stages of developing new policies and incentive programs to support the real estate industry in transitioning to more energy-efficient building development and management.
