The Building Resiliency Imperative at COP28

COP28 – the United Nations Climate Summit wrapped up last week with a much-debated agreement to begin reducing global dependence on fossil fuels.

While the pace of fossil fuel reduction dominates post-event media coverage, a less visible series of multilateral agreements emerged from the COP28  negotiations that could have more immediate long-term impacts on the cement and concrete sectors.

The imperative to strengthen resiliency and accelerate adaptation in constructing more climate-resilient buildings and infrastructure generated agreements between nations and key industry players that will change the built environment globally.

For the first time, the cement and concrete sectors occupied the center stage with agreements on circularity and the deployment of innovative technologies that made the goal of net-zero construction by 2050 plausible.

The London-based Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) led a collective effort at the event to bring together governments, industry, the financial community, policymakers, scientists, and civil society to lower the built environment’s carbon footprint.

The GCCA released a new Report that provides an update on the global activity and progress of the world’s cement and concrete industry in meeting its Net Zero targets.

In 2021, the world’s leading producers, representing 80% of global production outside of China, signed up for the GCCA’s Cement and Concrete Industry’s 2050 Net Zero Roadmap and committed to helping limit global warming to 1.5C, in line with UN agreements.

So far, the combined decarbonization efforts of the GCCA and its members are making a difference. Independently verified published data shows a 23% drop in CO₂ emission intensity of cement-related material compared to 1990.

A series of high-profile initiatives were launched at the COP event. These included a Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported Industrial Transition Accelerator for Heavy Industries, a joint  Canadian-UAE Cement and Concrete Breakthrough, a joint Canada- United States Carbon Management Challenge, and an Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI) involving Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Cement and Concrete Breakthrough Initiative will enable countries to share best practices on a range of policies and other measures to help the cement and concrete industry decarbonize.

The Deep Decarbonization initiative includes pledges by member countries to adopt time-bound commitments to procure low-emission steel, cement, and concrete, and/or to set emissions reduction thresholds for whole project life cycle assessments to achieve net zero emissions in public buildings and/or built infrastructure.

will seek to stimulate decarbonization across heavy-emitting sectors and accelerate the delivery of Paris-aligned targets. The ITA Secretariat will be hosted by the Mission Possible Partnership, which brings global industry leaders together with policymakers, finance, and technical experts to unlock investments to scale up the implementation of projects needed to cut emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) will determine targets.

Decarbonizing energy,  ending deforestation, tackling non-CO2 greenhouse gases, and accelerating Carbon Capture and Storage CCUS technologies will be the core themes of the Carbon Management Challenge.

U.S. President Joe Biden has invited other countries to join the Carbon Management Challenge. Leaders from Egypt, the European Union, Japan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Norway, and Denmark have supported the challenge.

Major cement industry players were also present at the UN Summit in Dubai.

Holcim, a global leader in cement and concrete production and use, announced it was a founding member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s (SMI) Circularity Task Force, targeting essential actions to advance climate action while preserving resources.

This commitment adds to Holcim’s work in circular construction, which includes the goal of recycling more than 10 million tons of construction and demolition (C&D) materials by 2025.

Also at COP28, Heidelberg Materials promoted its recently launched evoZero® cement, the world’s first carbon-captured net-zero cement.

Heidelberg hosted a special workshop to discuss policy- and market-driven instruments to accelerate the deployment of low-carbon construction materials with policymakers and construction value chain leaders.

The American Concrete Institute and the U.S. Green Building Council were other high-profile players from North America working alongside European Union and Asian organizations to promote sustainable construction and efforts to lower the built environment’s carbon footprint.

These various multi-party initiatives signal the growing international attention on strengthening the resilience of the buildings sector and advancing adaptation initiatives that lower carbon emissions.

Cement, concrete, steel, and other industries comprising the vast global construction sector have never received this level of attention at previous UN Climate Summits.

The various multilateral initiatives promoting decarbonization and resilience in the construction sector bode well for the future.

Member associations of the Pacific Northwest Building Resilience Coalition and the many thousand companies they represent are part of a tsunami of change that will make our cities, towns, and the critical infrastructure that sustains us more resilient and sustainable.