Opinion – Claudio Bernardes: How can the real estate market achieve carbon neutralization?

The world continues to experience the effects of climate change. As activities related to civil construction represent around 40% of all carbon emissions globally, the real estate market is responsible for developing strategies and mechanisms to mitigate the impacts arising from its activity.

Jones Lang Lasalle recently surveyed 1,000 real estate users and investors around the world to assess the industry’s levels of commitment, and explore the barriers they are facing on their journey towards decarbonisation. The survey revealed broad support for a more collaborative approach. More than 80% of respondents agree that a strong partnership between city governments, property users and investors is critical to driving the zero carbon agenda.

But how can the housing market achieve carbon offsetting? The adoption of a business model aimed at this objective will require a change of mentality in the public sector, which must see the real estate market as a long-term partner, capable of achieving environmental objectives. Without this, there will hardly be success in this endeavor.

This is the case, for example, of the government of the state of São Paulo, which is developing a Climate Action Plan for decarbonization until 2050, and called on the real estate sector to contribute ideas and joint actions to achieve this goal.

Basically, there are three main areas in the real estate activity that deserve attention in terms of neutralizing carbon emissions. The production of urban areas, the construction of buildings and the maintenance and operation of the built environment.

With regard to the production of urban areas, it is important to use green infrastructure, with solutions based on nature, and which can create sustainable urban spaces. This green infrastructure includes, among others, drainage solutions without the use of conventional tunnel systems, but with rain gardens, developed to capture water through infiltration, in addition to water reuse systems and implementation of renewable energy systems .

Embedded carbon —emissions of greenhouse gases during the construction of buildings, including those arising from the extraction, transport, fabrication and installation of building materials on site — and the operational emissions associated with these materials represent a growing share of the emission general life cycle of buildings.

According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program, incorporated carbon is expected to represent 74% of total emissions from new buildings between 2020 and 2030.

Therefore, the use of new technologies and the use of new materials that contain less incorporated carbon will certainly considerably reduce the contribution of civil construction to the carbon emission matrix.

The operation of the built environment, another important area, must move more boldly towards reducing the consumption of natural resources, especially water and energy, and the generation of waste.

On the other hand, approximately 80% of existing buildings —many with large amounts of incorporated carbon— will be with us in 2050. In this way, retrofit becomes an important tool for achieving carbon neutralization in the real estate sector.

The levels of carbon emission in the different stages of development of the real estate market, from production to operation, must be fully known, so that the most appropriate strategies to mitigate these effects are developed. Planning, actions and strategies are important in this process. However, the creation of indicators for monitoring and following up on interventions will be essential for the real estate market to achieve, in an objective and planned manner, carbon neutrality.