World Green Building Council Sets New Goal for Net-Zero Buildings by 2050

PARIS — The World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) announced a new project on June 30 that aims to achieve net-zero building performance by 2050. The project, Advancing Net Zero, will help WorldGBC and Green Building Councils in countries with some of the highest projected growth in building roll out net-zero building certification and training so that these highly-efficient buildings become commonplace over the next 35 years, according to a statement by WorldGBC.

At least eight Green Building Councils from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden, will initially take part in the project, according to WorldGBC. Additionally, Architecture 2030, a nonprofit organization working to reduce emissions from buildings, will be a lead partner to WorldGBC and lend technical expertise to some participants, according to WorldGBC.

The goal of the project is to reduce CO2 emissions from the buildings sector by 84 gigatonnes by 2050, according to WorldGBC. Under the project, participating Green Building Councils (in total there are 74 Green Building Councils worldwide), will develop action plans with an aim to launch a national net-zero certification. Along with the certifications (developed for each Green Building Council’s specific market), each participating council will create specific net-zero training for green building professionals and support the development of net-zero demonstration projects within their own countries, according to WorldGBC.

According to the WorldGBC website, the long-term targets include:
• All new buildings and major renovations should be net-zero starting in 2030, meaning no buildings should be built below net-zero standards beyond 2030, and 100 percent of buildings should be net-zero by 2050.
• 75,000 professionals will be trained on net-zero building by 2030, and 300,000 trained by 2050.
• All Green Building Councils that operate certification schemes, will have a net-zero tool in place by 2030.

The ambitious project will initially focus on certification and training and eventually it is expected that businesses and governments will begin to adopt targets for net-zero buildings.