The Green Building Council has published a new guide on using green bonds to fund sustainable building projects. The group – a global alliance of green building ratings providers across North America, Europe and Asia – said the guide had been designed to attract more green finance to real estate, which currently suffers from “limited understanding and uptake” of green debt instruments. The document also aims to clarify the connections between global green building practices and current sustainable finance practices, with a specific focus on green bonds and loans. It reviews a range of building certifications commonly used by international investors, exploring their characteristics and explaining their application. The report’s release coincides with the launch by the World Economic Forum (WEF) of a roadmap for “transforming the global building sector to combat climate change and protect biodiversity”, with a focus on China. The WEF said 37% of global emissions could be traced back to buildings, and improving energy efficiency and sustainability of the sector would have a major impact on rising global temperatures. The report was written in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and focuses on minimising emissions from buildings, improving their impact on nature, increasing their resilience to climate-related weather conditions, and boosting the physical and mental wellbeing of their occupants. “The sheer complexity of the building value chain requires upstream and downstream players to work together on enabling actions such as standard alignment and technology breakthrough,” said Yvonne Zhou, Managing Director and Senior Partner at the BCG.
