The Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC)

Our vision   

Founded at COP21, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and with 290 members, including 41 countries, the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) is the leading global platform for buildings stakeholders committed to a common vision: A zero-emission, efficient and resilient buildings and construction sector. The GlobalABC:

• is a global advocate and a catalyst to action: GlobalABC advocates for market transformation and focuses on driving action by defining a carbon neutrality strategy for the built environment; GlobalABC advocates the sector’s importance for global climate action through international high-level events, including COPs.
• is a trusted platform to set targets and track progress: GlobalABC tracks progress in its annual Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction, and its Global Building Climate Tracker, a new index to track progress in decarbonization in the sector; GlobalABC co-leads the Human Settlements Pathway under the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, which outlines the 2030 and 2050 decarbonization goals.
• supports countries in setting priorities and measures based on their situation: GlobalABC develops policy guidance and global and regional buildings and construction roadmaps outlining aspirational targets, timelines, and key actions for essential policies and technologies, and, offering a model for national and city-level buildings and construction roadmaps to support and raise the ambition of NDCs.
• supports the private sector transition with priorities and strategies toward business models focused on decarbonising and increasing the resilience of buildings.

Our Action

UNEP and GlobalABC helped shape the 2030 and 2050 decarbonization goals for the built environment under the UNFCCC’s Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action’s Human Settlements Pathway: 

• By 2030, the built environment should halve its emissions, whereby 100 per cent of new buildings must be net-zero carbon in operation, and embodied carbon must be reduced by at least 40 per cent. 
• By 2050, all new and existing assets must be net zero across the whole life cycle, including operational and embodied emissions. 

UNEP, through the GlobalABC Secretariat it hosts, proposes “10 Principles for Effective Action” to policymakers and practitioners to join forces and spread climate change adaptation actions in the building sector and to track annual progress. The 10 principles are as follows. 

1. Urgency: Act now.
2. Stakeholders: Consider a systemic integration of measures for adaptation across the entire value chain.
3. Process: Consider adaptation along the entire lifecycle of an asset.
4. Mitigation: Implement adaptation and mitigation in tandem.
5. Data: Understand climate risk data and accept uncertainty.
6. Scale: Think beyond asset-level.
7. Green: Consider nature-based solutions.
8. People: Promote a “just adaptation” of the building sector.
9. Finance: Enable adaptation of the building sector. 
10. Local: Fit adaptation measures to the local context.

UNEP also supports the “Buildings Breakthrough” target (Near-zero emission and resilient buildings are the new normal by 2030), co-led by France (Ministry for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion) and the Kingdom of Morocco (Ministry of National Territory Planning, Land Planning, Housing and City Policy), and coordinated under the umbrella of the UNEP-hosted GlobalABC.

The Governments of France and Morocco, together with UNEP, launched the Buildings Breakthrough at COP28, which will see countries joining forces to accelerate the transformation of the sector with a view to making near-zero emissions and climate resilient buildings the new normal by 2030. Twenty-seven countries have so far pledged their commitment to the Buildings Breakthrough.

The GlobalABC contributes to UNEP’s work on energy efficiency by bringing together building and construction stakeholders to raise the role of energy efficiency in the sector’s decarbonisation and resilience. The GlobalABC’s work on energy efficiency includes the development of the Global and Regional Roadmaps for Buildings and Construction, the coordination of the Buildings Breakthrough targets, the Programme for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (PEEB), and the advocacy of building codes and building decarbonisation in Nationally Determined Contributions.