Global Alliance Unlocks Billions for Decarbonizing Buildings at Scale

Philadelphia, PA (Nov. 12, 2024) – A global alliance of green building organizations today launched a groundbreaking sustainable finance call to action aimed at bringing the vast majority of buildings up to modern sustainability standards. The report, “Building Transition: How to Scale and Finance an Inclusive Transition for the Built Environment,” focuses on the 75% of lower-performing buildings that have not yet adopted green building practices. 

The initiative, led by the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Alliance HQE-GBC France, seeks to close the gap between top performers and the rest of the market.

With the building sector accounting for a significant share of global emissions, unlocking investments for the underperforming majority is seen as a crucial step in decarbonizing at scale. This call to action lays out how to attract capital to this large untapped segment, ensuring that decarbonization happens across the entire built environment – not just in the elite tier of buildings.  

“Building Transition” identifies a critical gap in the industry – while high-performing buildings have access to green finance and resources, most buildings remain locked out due to a lack of capital. The report offers key recommendations to address this challenge:

• Policy and taxonomy reform: Stronger policies and taxonomies that direct capital toward underperforming buildings, and context-specific, performance-oriented criteria tailored to diverse building types, ensuring investment reaches all buildings.  
• Global decarbonization standards: Defining a credible decarbonization transition and providing common standards, metrics, and decarbonization tools that can be used globally while allowing for harmonization across diverse assets and geographies.  
• Resilience in finance: Incorporating adaptation and resilience in real estate finance to account for the impacts of both acute and chronic climate events. Currently, this is not a common practice in real estate finance, and lack of resilience makes lower-performing buildings, the “other 75%,” more vulnerable to becoming stranded assets and suffering from climate impacts. 

The new call to action builds on the earlier report, “Financing Transformation: A Guide to Green Building for Green Bonds and Green Loans,” which outlined how green building certifications – such as LEED, BREEAM, Green Star, Green Mark, and HQE – can set the benchmark for sustainable investments. This new report expands the conversation to ensure that financing solutions are inclusive, enabling more building owners to access the funds needed to make meaningful improvements. 

“Building Transition” represents a critical step in making sustainable finance accessible to a wider range of building owners, ensuring that decarbonization can happen at scale and in every corner of the built environment. 

Jane Goddard, Deputy CEO of BRE

"Bridging the gap between high-performing and underperforming buildings is essential to achieving our global decarbonization goals. This report underlines the importance of inclusive investment strategies that unlock capital for the majority of buildings, ensuring that no part of the built environment is left behind."

Peter Templeton, president & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council 

“Achieving large-scale decarbonization is only possible with widespread adoption of green building practices,” said Peter Templeton, president and CEO of USGBC. “Every building needs a decarbonization plan to help meet emissions reduction goals to mitigate climate change. However, making improvements to the vast stock of existing buildings requires access to capital. “Building Transition” underscores the importance of uniting key stakeholders such as investors and policymakers to create more opportunities for building owners to act.” 

Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia

“Achieving deep decarbonisation across the building sector means leaving no stone unturned – from iconic CBD towers to suburban homes and everything in between. We must ensure green finance is accessible to all, especially those properties yet to benefit from sustainable investment. This report lays out a clear path to bring sustainable finance into the hands of more building owners, empowering them to accelerate change to climate goals.”

Yvonne Soh, CEO of the Singapore Green Building Council:

“Singapore has set a goal to green 80% of our buildings by 2030. This report is a reflection of our decarbonization journey and offers insights into driving and scaling up market innovation. Partnerships are key to unlocking the potential of sustainable finance, and we look forward to working with all stakeholders to harness sustainable finance to transform our built environment."

Rachel Chermain, CEO Alliance HQE-GBC France:

“Alliance HQE-GBC France is pleased to have become part of this global alliance and to be working alongside its partners to develop innovative, practical solutions for transforming the built environment in a fundamentally sustainable manner to address pressing climate issues. This resource illustrates methods to expedite the decarbonization of the entire building stock through more robust, customized policies, comprehensive international decarbonization standards, and sustainable financing mechanisms that are widely available to diverse building owners.”