Side Event COP27: Pathways to Sustainable Building Markets through lifecycle-based Information

Name: Side Event COP27: Pathways to Sustainable Building Markets through lifecycle-based Information
Start: 2022-11-16
End: 2022-11-16

16 November 2022

Overview

Agenda

When? 16 November 2022, 18:30-20:00 (Egypt, UTC+2)

How to attend?

In-person: Blue Zone Room: Thebes, COP27 Egypt
Online: Watch the live stream below

In 2020, the buildings and construction sector accounted for almost 40% of global energy-related GHG emissions, 35% of final energy demand, and a large share of global resource extraction (2021 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction, GlobalABC). How we construct our buildings and cities is an example of unsustainable consumption and production practices. Hence, without a doubt, the way we build and use our buildings must change if we are to reach the climate change mitigation targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

The assessment of potential environmental impacts associated with a product, a process, or a system, along its life cycle, from the extraction of raw material to the end of life, is called life cycle assessment (LCA). Adopting a life cycle thinking approach (LCT) for the built environment allows decision-makers to assess burdens and benefits associated with construction through its life cycle, including its supply chain, and to avoid solutions that shift burdens along the life cycle. All stakeholders along the life cycle of the building and construction industry, such as financers, manufacturers, constructors, real estate agencies and users, have an essential role to play in improving the overall carbon performance of buildings.

There are many tools that can be used to apply LCA to identify methods to reduce emissions in the building and construction sector. For example, the SCP Hotspots Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT) can be used to identify hot spot areas of unsustainable production and consumption along supply chains to support setting priorities in national sustainable consumption and production and climate policies. Additionally, communicating this information through coherent and simplified labeling processes is important to drive unified decision-making processes across stakeholders.

Event Objectives

Highlight the opportunities on national and organizational level
Show the importance of LCA for market transformation and building decarbonization
LCA opportunities for buildings and construction in Egypt and developing countries
Current status of LCA as applied to the buildings and construction sector in EPD in Egypt, MENA & Africa
Strategize a clear-cut way forward (beyond COP27) to infiltrate the Egyptian and neighbouring region's market

Organizers: logos

Keynote Speaker and Moderator of the Panel: Sebastiaan Stiller, CEO, EPD International

18:30 EET – Introduction to the climate change impact caused by building and construction sectors with emphasis over the embodied carbon and their relation to EPDs

Jonathan Duwyn, Programme Officer, UNEP Global ABC

18:40 EET - Introduction to LCA methodology and LCA drivers. What is Life Cycle Thinking and relation to LCA? What are LCA drivers? Exploring all aspects where LCA can influence, from climate change to policymaking

Nasser Ayoub, Co-founder, and CEO, EPD Egypt

18:50 EET – Challenge 1: Data collections/records are almost non-existent. What are the best practices of data collection implemented worldwide? How are energy data gaps limiting the LCA expansion? Supporting in building regional databases and Data Centers. Any other challenges in the Arab States.

Jauad El Kharraz, Executive Director, Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE)

19:00 EET - Challenge 2: Lack of Awareness and thus policies and regulations. Representation of current policies that drive EPDs in each region, Nordic, MENA, America, Asia, etc. How can we increase awareness of LCA/EPDs within the MENA region? What are the needed policies in Egypt and Arab countries? Increasing trained personnel in the MENA region

Elin Eriksson, Director Key Accounts and Assignments, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute
Sebastiaan Stiller, CEO, EPD International

19:10 EET - Challenge 3: The high costs to conducting LCA and EPDs. Ways to be cost efficient when conducting LCA The difference in USD/Euro currencies and most local currencies in MENA region is a lot – this makes modelling tools license very expensive How tapping into sustainable financing help tackle the cost limitation Supporting SMEs in MENA region as well as Africa to help them develop EPDs

Sebastiaan Stiller, CEO, EPD International

19:20 EET - Challenge 4: Lack of industry collaboration Value chains, especially in the buildings and construction sector, are highly fragmented, which makes it difficult to create a system that seeks collaboration across the value chain. The demand side actors such as developers, investors, owners, and end users are not playing an active role due to the lack of understanding which limit progress towards Net-Zero Buildings. To move the building and construction system to “net zero” and transform the market, all actors from business, finance, policy and science need to work together How each partner in the side event can collaborate on playing a significant role in increasing industry collaboration?

Ehab Shalaby, CEO and Chairman, DCarbon Egypt

19:30 EET – Reducing the Greenhouse Emission of the Building and Construction Sector – The importance of a holistic approach and how chemicals could help to accelerate the solution

Mita Noriyuki, Director Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, ICCA

19:40 EET – Q&A with audience

Click on the visual below for more information about our speakers.