To mark Cities, Regions and Built Environment Day at COP26 on 11th November, the World Green Building Council announced 44 businesses, including 28 UKGBC members, taking sector-leading action on reducing the whole life carbon of buildings by signing up to the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment (‘the Commitment’).

Encouraging UK businesses to join the Commitment has been a key part of UKGBC’s campaign leading up to COP in highlighting the built environment’s role as a critical climate solution. The latest announcement brings the total number of UKGBC member signatories up to 58, representing almost half of all global business signatories (122 signatories).

Earlier this year, the Commitment was strengthened to include an expanded scope covering the embodied carbon of buildings which, according to UKGBC’s recently published Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap, will form over half of the UK built environment’s emissions by 2035.

Under the Commitment, signatories will, by 2030:

  • Reduce all operational emissions of new and existing built assets
  • Achieve maximum reductions in embodied carbon for new developments and major renovations over which they have direct control
  • Compensate for any residual operational and upfront embodied emissions that cannot be mitigated
  • Advocate for wider emission reductions via their business activities and report on their impact, to enable and accelerate the sector wide transition to net zero

Karl Desai, Senior Advisor – Advancing Net Zero at UKGBC:

“The outcomes from COP26 are clear – net zero will only be achieved through strong business leadership, and buildings play a critical role in the transition. The 28 UKGBC members recently announced to lead this charge will maximise whole life carbon reductions in their own buildings, helping to unlock the solutions needed to accelerate the transition across the entire buildings sector. I encourage all businesses wanting to lead the pack to sign up to the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment.”

UKGBC members included in the latest WorldGBC announcement are:

You can see the full list of UKGBC member Commitment signatories here.

You can see the full list of global Commitment signatories here.

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