Global management consulting firm McKinsey recently launched the Net Zero Built Environment Council, a cross-sector coalition of industry stakeholders aiming to decarbonize the built world.
The council’s chief goal is to collaboratively create new pathways to cut greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.
The Council will support stakeholders to create and commercialize new green innovations, create global sustainability metrics and research, and promote cost-effective pathways to “decarbonizing everything from construction methods to materials,” according to McKinsey.
The council will work to align siloed supply chains, construction projects and markets, and help industry players tap into an estimated $800 billion to $1.9 trillion in potential green markets. The launch of the Net Zero Built Environment Council comes alongside the release of a new McKinsey report that identifies a lack of collaboration within the built environment ecosystem as a key obstacle to decarbonization.
McKinsey’s research found that 76% of emissions from an average building are caused by operations, demonstrating a need for collaborative decarbonization across the entire built environment life cycle, not just during construction.
The report found that half of all emissions across the built environment could be eliminated with little extra cost, while 20% will be more costly and complex to decarbonize, such as cement and steel, requiring more industry partnerships to reduce costs and risks for all new materials and technologies.
3 goals of the Net Zero Built Environment Council
To help facilitate the critical elements for change, we are launching the Net Zero Built Environment Council, which brings together many of the leading incumbents and new scale-ups across the built-environment ecosystem. Along the lines of the three ingredients covered in this article, the council’s ambitions can help with the following actions:
- Create transparency. Establish a fact-based perspective on a possible cost-effective recipe (translate the most powerful technology and other levers into a simplified playbook that applies to major building archetypes).
- Raise awareness of what is doable. Remove perceived barriers to decarbonization, capture the interest of decision makers, and spur “positive pressure” and acceleration to act.
- Stimulate partnerships and encourage initiative. Enable execution via innovative financial models, deployment of technologies, and scaling of efforts by bringing together stakeholders from across the built environment, whether by jointly commercializing technologies at scale or by identifying and creating lighthouse projects.
All contributors along the value chain must come together to overcome systematic challenges and increase transparency on cost-effective pathways to reach decarbonization goals and spread awareness to the entire sector. In this sense, the Net Zero Built Environment Council represents an important step forward in uniting industries and sectors—not only to achieve their climate ambitions but also to create green growth in the built environment.
Related Stories
| Mar 21, 2013
Best Firms to Work For: Enermodal Engineering is green to the core
At Enermodal Engineering, there’s only one kind of building—a sustainable one.
| Mar 19, 2013
New LEED for Neighborhood Development and Historic Preservation guide released
A new guidance manual, LEED for Neighborhood Development and Historic Preservation, outlines strategies geared towards helping building teams incorporate historic resources into their developments.
| Mar 14, 2013
25 cities with the most Energy Star certified buildings
Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Chicago top EPA's list of the U.S. cities with the greatest number of Energy Star certified buildings in 2012.
| Mar 10, 2013
Walgreens to build first net-zero energy retail store
Walgreens announced plans last week to build one of the nation's first net-zero retail stores. The Evanston, Ill., location will utilize solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal technology, LED lighting and ultra-high-efficiency refrigeration to produce energy equal to or greater than the building consumes.
| Feb 25, 2013
HOK sustainability expert Mary Ann Lazarus tapped by AIA for strategy consulting position
Mary Ann Lazarus, FAIA, LEED® AP BD+C, has accepted a two-year consulting position with the American Institute of Architects in Washington, DC. Her new position, which begins March 1, will focus on increasing the AIA's impact on sustainability across the profession. The St. Louis-based architect will continue consulting at HOK.
| Feb 20, 2013
CoreNet Global to real estate execs: 'Move forward on net-zero'
CoreNet Global, a major international association for corporate real estate and workplace executives, has released a public policy statement advocating adoption of net-zero energy buildings.
| Feb 13, 2013
Fast Company selects 'most innovative' architecture firms
Business innovation magazine Fast Company has released a list of 10 "most innovative" architectural practices, worldwide.
| Jan 23, 2013
USGBC Releases 2012 List of Top 10 States for LEED
The per-capita list is based on 2010 U.S. Census data and includes commercial and institutional buildings certified under LEED.
| Jan 7, 2013
Jerry Yudelson's issues his "Top 10 Green Building Megatrends" for 2013
Yudelson, a Contributing Editor to Building Design+Construction, says, “It looks like a good year ahead for the green building industry. Based on our experience, it seems clear that green building will continue its rapid expansion globally in 2013 in spite of the ongoing economic slowdown in most countries of Europe and North America. More people are building green each year, with 50,000 LEED projects underway by the latest counts; there is nothing on the horizon that will stop this Mega-trend or its constituent elements.”
