Construction Carbon Footprint: Up or Down?

If you picked up my book, Sustainable in a Circular World, then you know I sound the alarm about how our world needs to move from grey to green, fueled by design techniques that are sustainable in a circular economy. The construction industry is a big contributor to this movement, as I mentioned in my book and as we continue to see in new reports.

A new report from Nature Communications suggests the carbon footprint in the global construction sector is set to double by 2050. Simply insane! It seems we are heading in the wrong direction. Let’s unpack what exactly is causing this predicted spike and some solutions for addressing it.

Why are we heading in the wrong direction? Well, the challenge is each year that passes the world’s population is increasing by roughly 80 million. We are projected to have 9.7 billion by 2050. This ...