The Zero Carbon and Climate Resilience Readiness Framework (Resilience Framework) is a WorldGBC regional project that provides the first step towards decarbonising the built environment and achieving energy efficient and resilient buildings.
Our Framework has been developed by Green Building Councils (GBCs) in our global network, supporting the building and construction industry on its journey to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The Framework breaks down the key elements needed to accelerate the uptake of zero carbon and deliver guidance on how to achieve a decarbonised built environment.
It will highlight the market readiness of different countries/regions, celebrate leadership, and outline the next steps for those at an earlier stage of their zero carbon transition.
Government, NDCs and key decision makers should commit to carbon neutrality target and pave the national roadmap towards this common goal.
Readiness Goal 1.1: Existence of a developed national emissions target and a defined role of the building sector in delivering that target.
Readiness Goal 1.2: Development and public communication of a national decarbonisation roadmap for the built environment.
Readiness Goal 1.3: Delivery of the national emissions roadmap through implementation of mandatory regulations and/or performance requirements in support of achieving zero carbon.
Readiness Goal 1.4: Development and public communication of the national grid decarbonisation plan. Action must be taken as soon as possible, and progressively, improvements must be made to provide readily available clean energy options for the built environment.
Readiness Goal 1.5: Development and implementation of policies that promote availability and access to a local carbon market.
Readiness Goal 1.1: Local and national governments to support the creation of future weather and climate data sets for buildings and urban design.
Readiness Goal 1.2: Building codes to be enforced and reviewed to be updated as needed to enhance resilience. Buildings to be designed and retrofitted using future climate data (instead of historic).
Readiness Goal 1.3: Governments liaising with resilience experts to align on disaster planning, mitigation, preparedness and response.
Readiness Goal 1.4: Governments liaising with the financial sector to develop funding programmes for retrofitting buildings to enhance resilience.
Readiness Goal 1.5: Governments to lead and support the development of local resilience and climate action plans considering preparation, response and recovery.
Readiness Goal 1.6: Governments to promote resilient buildings and infrastructure through public procurement.
Projects should adopt new and innovative technologies to advance zero carbon for both operational and embodied carbon and follow WorldGBC’s whole-life carbon vision guiding principles.
Readiness Goal 2.1: Achieve public and private sector consensus on a clear and agreed definition of zero carbon.
Readiness Goal 2.2: Garner public commitments by industry leaders towards zero carbon.
Readiness Goal 2.3: Create an energy performance improvement strategy.
Readiness Goal 2.4: Create an embodied carbon performance improvement strategy.
Readiness Goal 2.5: Implement policies and expand infrastructure works that allow integration of renewable energy to facilitate zero carbon ready buildings.
Readiness Goal 2.6: Implement policies and processes that allow the establishment of an embodied carbon benchmark. Thereafter, through continuous data collection, conduct periodic updates of the benchmark.
Readiness Goal 2.7: Develop and implement a recognised net zero certification scheme.
Readiness Goal 2.8: Develop and implement a green product certification scheme.
Readiness Goal 2.1: Buildings to be analysed by climate risk and vulnerability assessments.
Readiness Goal 2.2: New constructions and retrofits to be designed accounting for future local climate conditions.
Readiness Goal 2.3: Design strategies for enhanced resilience to be considered, such as frangible architecture, passive design and nature-based solutions, accounting for the different user and building types.
Readiness Goal 2.4: Design for adaptation and reconstruction to be considered, using tools to record the building components and design (such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), maintenance protocols etc).
Readiness Goal 2.5: Cities and buildings to develop safety zones, adequately communicated to the community.
Readiness Goal 2.6: Neighbourhoods to be developed with blue and green infrastructures to absorb and adapt for changing climate conditions, such as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), parks, wetlands etc.
Project/organisation should optimise the potential of green financing and create a sustainable business case.
Readiness Goal 3.1: Transparent measurement, monitoring and reporting of GHG emissions and sustainability performance. (Developers, asset owners and financial institutions).
Readiness Goal 3.2: Disclose information related to physical and transition risks relevant to a company or portfolio. (Companies and financial institutions).
Readiness Goal 3.3: Development and disclosure of transition plans towards a zero carbon portfolio or company activities (companies + financial institutions).
Readiness Goal 3.4: Expand and promote investment instruments supporting zero carbon transition plans (government agencies and financial institutions).
Readiness Goal 3.5: Active discussions between policy makers and the private sector to craft policies/incentives in support of the realisation of all relevant RGs. Specifically, RG2 (promote technologies and solutions to achieve net zero) and RG4.2, 4.3, 4.4 (adoption of data technology to monitor progress towards zero carbon) (government agencies, companies and financial institutions).
Readiness Goal 3.6: Engage in international cooperation, across public and private sectors, to share best practices, knowledge, and resources.
Readiness Goal 3.1: Assessment and disclosure of climate-related physical risks and climate-related opportunities at the asset level, in line with national and international frameworks.
Readiness Goal 3.2: Resilience integrated in insurance policies to financially reward resilience features in building design.
Readiness Goal 3.3: Climate change risk assessments and resilience features integrated in funding programmes for building construction and renovation.
Promote transparent and secure data sharing and build solutions to leverage actionable data.
Readiness Goal 4.1: Based on RG2.1, RG2.3 and RG 2.4, translate improvement strategies and zero carbon targets into SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) parameters that can quantify the zero carbon performance.
Readiness Goal 4.2: Implement data governance that facilitates the integration, pre-processing, labelling (semantic annotation) and querying of heterogeneous data.
Readiness Goal 4.3: Implement data infrastructures and processes that enable data collection to account for operational, embodied carbon, and other external data sources that could optimise or contribute to achieving zero carbon performance.
Readiness Goal 4.4: Adopt digital solution developments to provide actionable data for well-informed and effective decision making and policymaking.
Readiness Goal 4.5: Encourage data transparency through voluntary disclosure to promote accountability, trust and benchmarking of different types of zero carbon buildings.
Readiness Goal 4.1: Public and private sector to work with academia to develop and update local future weather and climate data sets for buildings and urban design modelling.
Readiness Goal 4.2: Public and private sector to work with academia to develop response and collaboration platforms (i.e. hub of local resources to enhance local resilience of the built environment).
Readiness Goal 4.3: Relevant data is collected to update action plans.
To be the leader and advocator to inspire the industry and promote advancing zero carbon Beyond the Business Case.
Readiness Goal 5.1: Cultivating a collective zero carbon commitment.
Readiness Goal 5.2: Promoting an innovation driven mindset.
Readiness Goal 5.3: Enhancing stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
Readiness Goal 5.4: Building resilience and adaptive capacity.
Readiness Goal 5.5: Fostering ethical and responsible leadership.
Readiness Goal 5.1: All sectors to promote an innovation driven mindset.
Readiness Goal 5.2: Enhance stakeholder engagement and collaboration.
Readiness Goal 5.3: Promote resilience and adaptive capacity building.
Readiness Goal 5.4: Foster ethical and responsible leadership.