Our built environment plays a huge role in our lives and our natural, economic and cultural context. The built environment provides a context for facing and addressing daily activities as well as humanity’s greatest challenges.

However, buildings are responsible for almost 40% of global CO2 emissions. The greenhouse gases (GHG) generated by buildings come from the carbon of energy used to heat, light, transport users and resources such as water, waste management and more, with serious consequences for our planet and for human health.

Sustainable construction must be the only way forward and the only future for our cities, whereby today’s “best practices” become tomorrow’s standard practices, establishing a growing basis for ever higher performance and efficiency, creating healthier indoor and outdoor spaces and therefore lower impact, more sustainable and regenerative built environments.

The sustainable goal of the built environment is to ensure that buildings and communities create value for all stakeholders, not just a few, for the planet, people and the economy. The sustainable construction process requires metrics and systems that effectively quantify impacts, externalities and benefits.

Environmental certification systems such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) transparently quantify the impact of buildings with environmental, social and public health metrics, and allow building owners to share their story of social and environmental responsibility while generating a truly positive impact.