by Brianna Crandall — November 25, 2015—As Paris and countries around the world ready for the COP21 (Conference of Parties) Paris Climate Conference, more than 54 building and real estate companies, including Thornton Tomasetti, Skanska and JLL, announced on Friday that they have signed on to the Building and Real Estate Climate Declaration, a business call to action that urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change.
The Declaration was recognized before thousands of industry leaders and experts at the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Washington, DC.
The Building and Real Estate Climate Declaration is a collaborative effort among the USGBC, the Carbon Leadership Forum and Ceres. It is a companion to Ceres’ Climate Declaration, launched in 2013, which has more than 1,660 signatories nationwide, including such iconic brands as Gap Inc., General Mills, Disney, Apple and Starbucks.
The building and real estate sector firms have signed their own Building and Real Estate Climate Declaration to call attention to the specific risks and opportunities associated with climate change on the built sector industry, which is a major economic driver in the United States and produces 39 percent of carbon emissions annually. USGBC asserts that buildings represent the lowest cost and greatest potential to reduce carbon emissions.
The building and real estate industry faces multiple climate change impacts. Extreme weather, sea level rise, coastal erosion, floods, and wildfires are contributing to rising insurance rates and premiums in sought-after coastal real estate, points out USGBC. Hundreds of billions of dollars of property are at risk of inundation from sea level rise and storm surge alone.
In the construction sector, extreme heat can lead to lower labor productivity, curtailed hours and extended construction schedules. The cost of property damage from extreme weather events in the United States topped $19 billion across 35 states in 2014. Built sector leaders are turning those risks into opportunities.
Thornton Tomasetti
Thornton Tomasetti has goals to implement climate neutral business operations and buildings by 2030. Measuring the embodied carbon of its structural engineering projects and reporting to the American Institute of Architects 2030 Commitment since 2012, Thornton Tomasetti has numerous initiatives towards achieving their goal, including LEED Gold+ certification of all new offices and major office renovations over 4,000 square feet.
JLL
Similarly, since 2007 JLL has documented $2.5 billion in cumulative energy savings for their clients, through energy efficiency, sustainable construction practices, and participation in the ENERGY STAR and U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED programs. In 2013 alone, the firm saved clients $681 million in energy costs. JLL’s sustainability report is available online.
Skanska
The construction giant Skanska has goals to replace fossil energy with renewable energy, and has conducted 113 “project carbon footprints” to reduce greenhouse emissions in 2014, an increase of 40 percent since 2013. Skanska is also committed to long-term objectives such as generating zero waste through reducing upfront demand, reusing materials and implementing environmentally sound treatments.
The building and real estate industry is a major economic driver in the United States, accounting for 39% of CO2 emissions per year, with real estate construction alone contributing $1 trillion towards the nation’s economic output in 2014, according to USGBC. As of early 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Labor estimated that 6.34 million Americans were employed in the construction industry. The agency also estimated that in early 2014, 1.5 million Americans were employed in the real estate industry.
Green building is a significant segment of the industry, and its growth is outpacing conventional construction and will account for more than a third of all construction in the United States by 2018, according to a USGBC 2015 Economic Impact Study conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton.
The 54 real estate and building sector signatories include architecture and engineering firms, construction companies of all sizes, and building product manufacturers, and are headquartered all across the United States, from New York City to California.
See the full list of building and real estate agencies signing the Climate Declaration. Others are invited to join them.
