The real estate sector requires moving to an integrated design process, where carbon emissions and sustainability are considered at the upfront and not at a later stage and across the lifecycle of the building, covering both embodied emissions and operational emissions.

This was stated by Salwa al Maflahi, Director for Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Aldar Properties at the Second Annual Retrofit Tech Abu Dhabi Summit. 

Embodied emissions are related to materials that are used in construction, while operational emissions are released while keeping the assets operational.

“Buildings account for 37% of today's global CO2 emissions when both operational emissions and embodied emissions are taken into account. One key fact about the sector is that we are now building for the next 50 to 100 years. So there is a significant opportunity to reduce both embodied emissions and operational emissions by building efficiently” she said.

Salwa said that embodied and operational emissions are influenced by different stakeholders at different stages of the real estate value chain, and hence, research, collaboration, and retrofit will be key elements in the decarbonization process.

The Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015, calls for countries to take concerted climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Salwa said that the shift to net zero to ultimately limit global warming to 1.5°C is becoming more and more challenging with the slow uptake of this transition at different levels. 

“The current decarbonization rate is only between 1.5% to 2.5% annually. While it should be at 12.9 annually to reach net zero, no later than 2050. And that tells us that the global rate of decarbonization must rapidly accelerate,” she said.

One of the ways to do this would be understanding carbon accounting across the lifecycle of the building.

“It is estimated that more than half of the total carbon emissions from all global needs destruction between 2020 and 2050 will be due to upfront emissions of construction and embodied emissions. It's therefore imperative that we actually review our actions now to achieve early savings in the building lifecycle,” she added.