Engineering firm Integral Group, property and infrastructure group Lendlease and product manufacturer the Rockwool Group have become official sponsors of the World Green Building Council’s Advancing Net Zero project.
The project aims for every single building – both new and existing – to operate at zero carbon emissions by 2050, or sooner.
They are joined by the new funder Blackstone Ranch Institute, which supports high impact environmental projects that seek change on an international scale. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and ClimateWorks Foundation have also previously supported the project.
Advancing Net Zero launched in June 2016 and calls upon national Green Building Councils to introduce or adopt a net zero certification scheme for their market, with a pilot version ready for January 2018. As of today, 11 Green Building Councils are participating in the project, including countries with some of the largest and fastest-growing building markets.
Additional Green Building Councils in the WorldGBC network, including those who do not operate certification programmes in their market, will be participating in other aspects of the global project throughout 2017.
Terri Wills, CEO of the World Green Building Council, said: “Our Advancing Net Zero project continues to grow and expand its international impact day by day.
“The support of major companies such as Integral Group, Lendlease and Rockwool demonstrates the huge appetite amongst businesses to design, build, invest in and operate net zero buildings. We’ve started to pave the path towards net zero and there’s no turning back until every building gets there before 2050.”
The goal to achieve a net zero emissions global building stock by 2050 is the means by which the building sector will help to deliver on the Paris Agreement, forged at COP21 in December 2015. It was in Paris that WorldGBC, its 74 Green Building Councils and their 32,000 member companies committed to reduce CO2 emissions from buildings by 84 gigatonnes by 2050. This amount is what the International Energy Agency says is needed from the sector to keep global temperature rises to within 2°.
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