By Angela Caiceido, Bureau Chief, LatAM Region
The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), and its network of over 75 Green Building Councils (GBCs), call on policymakers to review and strengthen national building plans and policies using their new tool — NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings
The WorldGBC and the global GBC network launches a new digital tool, which will help policymakers assess their countries’ climate action plans, revealing where further action is needed to rapidly decarbonise the buildings sector and prioritise resilience to meet global climate 2030 targets.
The challenge
This year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil, will be a critical inflection point for people and planet as countries prepare to submit updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — climate action plans that chart a country’s course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris Agreement.
However, to meet global 2030 climate targets, nation’s must now collectively reduce emissions by 42 per cent.
Collectively, national commitments remain insufficient, with NDC commitments falling far short of the 1.5ºC goal, with current commitments on track for 2.6–3.1ºC of warming over the course of the century. February this year was the initial deadline for countries to submit their revised NDCs – yet so far only 23 out of 195 countries have submitted.
In November at COP30, NDCs and associated policies will be under the global spotlight. We know that the buildings and construction sector is a key driver of greenhouse gases, consuming 32 per cent of global energy and contributing to 34 per cent of global CO2 emissions.
Yet staggeringly, whilst 81 per cent of NDCs reference buildings, only 18 per cent include quantified targets and 16 per cent outline funding strategies.
The opportunity
Buildings are a cornerstone of human life and economic stability. This is both the challenge and the opportunity – a sustainable built environment is not a distant vision.
NDCs submitted in 2025 will shape policies and investments for the next decade. By enhancing and making bolder NDCs, countries can attract investment to bridge finance gaps, create new green jobs, improve energy security, lower people’s energy bills, and scale climate action to meet climate targets.
Launching the NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings
WorldGBC and the Green Building Council network want to use the months between now and COP30 to inspire and support governments to strengthen the buildings
components of their NDCs and policies, which is why they have created an NDC Scorecard tool that will help governments and key stakeholders to:
Identify best practice policy measures that should be contained within a country’s NDC and their national policy framework.
Analyse how a country’s NDC, national policies and regulations align against these policy measures.
Use the tool as a platform for collaboration with industry stakeholders and governments.
Prepare political actors for a wider process to develop national decarbonisation roadmaps (with GBCs as facilitators).
The development process was designed to identify best-practice building policies that should be in revised NDCs and integrated into national buildings regulatory frameworks. The tool was developed by WorldGBC and five pilot GBCs in Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Nigeria and Philippines; as well as in consultation with a wider global network of 40 organisations (GBCs, industry stakeholders and international organisations) to ensure local circumstance and nuances were prioritised.
The following policy categories were unanimously agreed:
Enabling environment
Carbon and energy
Adaptation and resilience
Circularity
Water
Biodiversity and nature
Health and wellbeing
Equity and access
CEO, World Green Building Council Cristina Gamboa said: “Alongside our network of more than 75 Green Building Councils and their 48,000 private sector and government members, we have been through a journey of growth — and we’ve learned that to achieve true sustainable transformation, after the global consensus must come local action and implementation.
And we are now in that era of implementation.
In this spirit, the NDC Scorecard for Sustainable Buildings has been created to identify the policy gaps and opportunities for governments and industry. We are hoping to mobilise a clear and coordinated government response ahead of COP30 to #BeBoldOnBuildings, which means scaling the sustainable building solutions that work in line with the Global Stocktake.
The ultimate responsibility of policymakers is to their people. This scorecard enables dialogue and collaboration with their national GBCs to implement bold building policies, and actionable solutions, that can improve people’s livelihoods and reduce the rate of climate change.”
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