But let's take a step back first. As early as 2015 and 2018, Diffenbaugh and Burke et al. presented initial results on the economic damage to the LICs and SIDs by showing the damage and losses in terms of the decline in gross domestic product (GDP) in individual countries. The declines in GDP in the individual countries for the years 2050 (in about 30 years) and 2100 (in about 80 years) were analyzed, assuming compliance with the 1.5° target. Yes, you read that right, in line with the 1.5° target. For a country like Sudan, this means that it will lose around 22% of its gross domestic product over the next 80 years. If we do not meet the 1.5° target and continue as before, Diffenbaugh and Burke even calculated a decline of 84% in Sudan's GDP.

All this is well known. But it is also clear that these states need to receive more support from the rich industrialized countries and wealthy emerging markets. Until now, the agreement was that the donor countries would jointly provide an annual climate finance package of 100 billion USD by 2025. This hurdle was first overcome in 2022, with a total of 115.9 billion USD.

This target has now been redefined at the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference, COP29. It was agreed that an annual climate finance package of 300 billion US dollars should be achieved by 2035. Even if many critics still consider this to be insufficient, it represents a significant increase in the financial resources to be made available. A prerequisite for achieving this ambitious goal is that all donor countries actually make their full contribution. That this is not the case, or was not the case in the past, is shown by a study by Colenbrander, Cao, Pettinotti and Quevedo from 2021. Countries such as Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Portugal, Greece and the USA fulfilled their contribution to well under 25%. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and Austria paid only up to 50% of their pledged share. Norway, Sweden and Germany paid their full share already in 2021.

In terms of the new climate finance target, the commitment by China and other wealthy emerging economies, which are still formally considered developing countries, to contribute to climate finance on a voluntary basis from now on is an important milestone.

For developing countries, the annual amount of 300 billion USD is not enough. This was made clear by representatives from Nigeria, Bolivia, India and some island states at COP29 through verbal contributions and their temporary departure from the negotiating round. They are calling for a total of 1.3 trillion USD annually until 2035 and at least 500 billion USD annually until 2030, which was not decided, but was written into the agreements as a target.

Not all of the more than 40,000 participants at COP29 were positive about climate financing. They pointed out the misuse of funds in some developing countries and considered it more sensible to invest money in research projects.

However, the participants at COP29 not only discussed compensation payments to developing countries, but also decided, for example, that climate projects financed abroad should count towards their own national climate targets. But more on that later.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is the annual meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Next year's conference, COP30, will take place in Belém, Brazil.

The deadline is getting closer. We are past the halfway point. There is not much time left to implement the United Nations agenda by 2030. But one step at a time. What exactly does the agenda propose to make life on our planet more sustainable, fairer and better?

The agenda sets out the following 17 goals:
#1 No poverty
#2 Zero hunger
#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#4 Quality Education
#5 Gender Equality
#6 Clean Water and Sanitation
#7 Affordable and Clean Energy
#8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
#9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure
#10 Reduced inequalities
#11 Sustainable cities and communities
#12 Responsible consumption and production
#13 Climate action
#14 Life below water
#15 Life on land
#16 Peace, justice and strong institutions
#17 Partnerships for the goals

The 17 goals provide a more or less detailed roadmap for a better future. For example, #1 No poverty by 2030 aims to reduce by half the proportion of people living in poverty. Under #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, the aim is to provide affordable housing and basic services for everyone, ensure safe, affordable and sustainable mobility, implement sustainable urban planning and land use, reduce environmental pollution (air quality and waste treatment), and provide better protection against disasters and the world's cultural and natural heritage by 2030.

The question now is to what extent we have come today, in 2024, and how great the challenges still are to achieve the goals? Each region and area has its own site-specific challenges, but metropolises in particular have to face up to the challenges together.

Since the adoption of the line by the United Nations and the noticeable consequences of climate change, the issue of sustainability has become more and more important to our consciousness and we are very interested in how things are progressing. To get an overview, we use evaluations that are available, among other things, in the Sustainable Cities Index (SCI's), which Arcadis has been publishing annually since the adoption of the goals in 2015.

The latest Sustainable Cities Index was published in June 2024 and, for the first time, assesses the progress of the top 100 cities towards meeting the 2030 targets under the Progress heading. Indicators for the analysis are the individual values from the pillars Planet, People and Profit, which are tracked over a period of 10 years. The Planet pillar measures environmental factors, the People pillar measures social performance and quality of life, and the Profit pillar measures business environment factors.

This year, the Dutch capital Amsterdam tops the Overall TOP100 ranking. It has economic power. The proportion of women in the labor market is strikingly high. Its RIA2030 master plan is designed to make the city carbon-neutral. It is probably the greenest city, having already been named European Green Capital in 2010. It is a city that, like Copenhagen (3rd place), is one of the most bicycle-friendly in the world.

In Copenhagen, the city with one of the highest standards of living, the globally recognized flagship project, the overall concept of the municipal waste incinerator, stands out. The facility is also used as a park and ski slope.

In second place in the SDI's2024 is the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which has launched the “Rotterdam Climate Initiative (RCI)” program with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions by 50% by 2025 compared to 1990 (European Commission, 2007). Work is also being done on innovative solutions for sustainable transport, such as the electrification of ferries. The air quality monitoring network is noteworthy. The city has also agreed on a resilience strategy.

Berlin, one of the most visited cities in the world, offers a wide range of cultural activities and has around 6,000 hectares of urban parks, making it one of the largest green lungs among European cities. In terms of sustainability, the focus is on appropriately designed urban planning.

London, with over 8 million inhabitants, is ranked 10th and is the city with the most electric buses in Europe. Under the London Green Grid program, the English capital is creating new green corridors to sustainably improve air quality and biodiversity in the city.

Warsaw makes it into the top 20 in the Progress category at number 14. In the overall ranking, the capital of Poland is already in ninth place behind Berlin. It is now considered the best destination in Europe. Green, friendly and cosmopolitan are some of the words used to describe it. So it's no wonder that the city is in fourth place in the People category.

Caution is advised with the newly introduced category Progress. Some cities that were already far ahead of the others at the start fall back to the bottom places in the 10-year focus. One example is the Norwegian capital Oslo. It ranks 96th in Progress, but leads the TOP100 overall.

To make the water of the oceans usable, it must be desalinated. According to estimates by the International Desalination Association (IDA) and Global Water Intelligence (GWI), there are around 20,000 seawater desalination plants worldwide, with a total capacity of around 100 million cubic metres of water per day.

These desalination plants are mainly located in regions where water is scarce, particularly in the Middle East (about 6,700 units), Asia (4,800 units), North America (3,300 units, particularly in California), South America (1,400 units) and Southern Europe (2,100 units). Of these, 330 plants are located on the Canary Islands alone, supplying the extensive banana plantations and the tourism sector.

According to estimates, the demand for water through desalination could increase to 300–400 million cubic metres of water per day by 2050. The GWI forecast assumes that the capacity required worldwide will double or triple by 2030.

The Middle East and North Africa region could already obtain 70 to 80 per cent of its water resources from desalination by then. India and China are planning to significantly expand their desalination capacities. The same applies to the USA.

Desalination plants, which convert seawater or brackish water into fresh water, are extremely energy-intensive. Energy accounts for around 40 to 50 per cent of operating costs. Depending on the technology used (reverse osmosis or thermal process), the energy requirement per cubic metre of water varies from 3-6 kWh to 15-25 kWh. Many plants cover their high energy needs with fossil fuels and emit large amounts of CO2. The future therefore lies in the use of renewable energies, such as solar and wind energy, as well as hydropower. However, it is difficult to implement on a net-zero basis. The most modern desalination plant in the world to date still relies on 60% fossil energy.

And there is another environmental problem. During the desalination of 100 litres of water, a waste product is produced, highly concentrated brine, which is fed directly back into the water. From 100 litres of salt water, about 45 litres of desalinated water are obtained by desalination and about 55 litres of brine are produced. It pollutes the ecosystem in many ways. It is estimated that by 2023, about 51 billion cubic metres of brine had been washed into the oceans. This corresponds to a salt layer of 15 cm on the area of France.

Many countries have responded to the challenges of water scarcity and the problems associated with desalination by launching research projects. You can find out more about this topic by clicking on the links below.

The Framework Convention is an international environmental agreement with the aim of preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and slowing down global warming as well as mitigating its consequences. 

The primary goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The interim assessments show that the goals already set cannot be achieved as of today. Even Germany is lagging behind the targets and will currently not achieve the necessary goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius and thus climate neutrality by 2035. 

Countries are considered climate neutral if they emit no more than one tonne of #CO2 per inhabitant per year, which can be absorbed by nature. 

Many poor countries achieve this goal. The big climate sinners are the few rich countries. Qatar, for example, emits 32.4 tonnes of CO2 per inhabitant per year, followed by countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The USA, Canada and Australia emit around 15 tonnes of CO2 per inhabitant per year. The Eurozone is at 6.5 tonnes, China at 7.4. In summary, the richest 10 percent of humanity emit 48 percent of the global CO2. 

All figures are based on assumptions from model considerations and CO2 budgeting. The emission of greenhouse gases cannot be measured meticulously. 

Indications are subject to estimates, which results in further risks. This is clearly illustrated by climatic events and new findings, according to which, for example, the permafrost in parts of the Canadian Arctic has already melted to the extent expected in 2090. The permafrost binds about twice the amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere. 

The number of such extreme climatic events is increasing. A reason for all of us to work towards the 1 tonne target. 

Repowering is the tuning of wind energy projects. By renewing existing projects, wind energy is used much more efficiently. Older turbines are replaced by modern and more powerful ones. In this way, more electricity is generated on the same area with fewer turbines.

This is all made possible by the research of recent years. Compared to the early days of wind energy in the 1980s, wind turbines in Germany are now being built with hub heights of up to 169 m instead of 30 m, for example. Wind turbines in 2024 are up to 600 times more efficient.

Most wind turbines in Germany are located in Schleswig-Holstein between the coasts of the North and Baltic Seas. The repowering rate here was already 25 percent in 2015. The increase in efficiency thanks to modern turbine technology often makes repowering attractive even before the planned service life of the existing turbines has expired.

While repowering has progressed at a rather low level in Germany since 2018, the all-time high of 1,148 MW from 2014 was narrowly missed in 2023 with a replaced capacity of 1,076 megawatts.

WindEurope estimates that around 27 gigawatts of wind energy capacity will be dismantled by 2030. Around 16 gigawatts of this is to be repowered. 11 gigawatts will be decommissioned. The total capacity will be increased to 28 gigawatts.

In order to achieve the climate targets, around 33 gigawatts of wind energy must be added each year in Europe. An expansion of wind energy of around 29 gigawatts per year is currently considered realistic. This would mean a total of 174 gigawatts of wind energy by the beginning of 2030.

The world hasn't gotten any easier for strategists and thought leaders, either. The Covid crisis, Russia's war on Ukraine, the related global energy economic crisis, and now the flare-up of the Middle East conflict. Issues that blur the continued urgent focus on #climate change?

Extreme weather events, the melting of glaciers and polar ice masses, and severe droughts have changed the awareness of society and politics. The energy transition is anchored as a goal and continues to progress globally.

A look at global #investment in the energy sector makes this clear. Within a decade, the investment volume in renewable energies has overtaken that in fossil energies. A look at the energy transition Index also shows that global activities have increased by 10 percent in the last decade, by only 6 percent in the area of system performance, but by 19 percent in the area of transition readiness.

Looking at the ETI ranking, Nordic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark retain their top positions. They have made the most progress in terms of system performance and transition readiness. Germany, in 11th place in the ETI ranking, narrowly misses out on a top 10 position. France, on the other hand, manages this with 7th place. However, these countries account for only 2% of energy-related #CO2 emissions, 4% of total energy supply and 2% of the world's population.

China, the world's largest energy consumer, has stepped up its energy transition efforts by 48% in the last 10 years, twice the global average. In terms of so-called transition momentum, #India is one of the few countries that is making progress in all areas.

We have included the #UK in our chart. Reason: While the UK Government's current approach to net zero seems to be losing clarity, we want to better support our UK clients, and underline our commitment to the United Kingdom, by establishing HCE UK.

Nigeria is in the spotlight these days, as the German government is currently in Nigeria for talks. Therefore, we decided to include the ET status of Nigeria.
Interested in the topic. You can find more information here: world economic forum or directly in the Insight Report 2023.

In 2022, the share of transactions in certified properties increased by 4.9% year-on-year to a total of 30.6%. In office properties, a peak value of 46.2 % was reached, so that almost every second newly constructed office building is a green building. In the logistics sector, the share rose from 16.5 % (2021) to 27 % (2022).

The demand for sustainable real estate is particularly high among institutional investors, such as insurance companies and pension funds as well as open-ended funds. The focus is on the so-called A-cities Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart.

Green buildings are properties in which attention is paid to a maximum reduction of CO2 emissions in the planning, design, construction, operation and also the subsequent deconstruction (reuse of materials). This is assessed in so-called life cycle assessments. Among other things, EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations) for the classification of building products form the basis.

The technical development of green buildings will continue to be dynamic. As already reported, example projects have shown that even simple changes in structural design, away from conventional construction methods, can lead to additional CO2 savings of up to 30%.

With the growing importance of sustainable real estate, the pressure is increasing to create more incentives for this as well, since this savings potential is currently not yet taken into account in the ESG criteria.

First of all, clarification of what is meant by construction products: Construction products are building materials, components and installations as well as construction sets that are manufactured to be permanently installed in structural (civil engineering) installations and whose use can have an impact on the requirements for structural installations. Prefabricated structures that are manufactured to be connected to the ground (e.g. prefabricated houses, prefabricated garages and silos) are also considered construction products.

An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is a document that describes the environmentally relevant properties of an individual product in the form of neutral and objective data. The aim is to use the data to record the effects of the product on the environment more precisely and thus to provide experts such as architects and engineers as well as owners with a basis for the planning and evaluation of buildings.

EPDs are based on so-called life cycle assessments. These assess the entire life cycle of a product in terms of its environmental impact, from the extraction of raw materials to recycling, disposal or reuse. All processes and by-products associated with the product, such as transport and packaging, are recorded.

In the ecological assessment, the life cycle assessments of buildings, the environmental impacts from the use of a building and the life cycle assessments of the building products used are the decisive factors.

More and more manufacturers of products are turning to EPDs to make their product attractive in the increasingly sustainable and environmentally conscious building sector and to be approved for funded projects in the first place.

The topic is complex and places high demands on planners and construction companies. Not every product that appears environmentally friendly is sustainable in the overall context of planning, site selection and type of use. EPDs help with the necessary data to make the concrete calculations for the individual case.

What does the life cycle assessment of your product look like? Does your product have an EPD? How sustainable and environmentally conscious are you planning?

Even investors with a strong awareness of the issue of #sustainability still too often decide against a more climate-friendly design variant for their building projects. There are several reasons for this.

First and foremost, they stick to conventional, but more climate-damaging construction methods for cost reasons. Secondly, they avoid risks that are suspected in the use of new building products, but are mostly rather unfounded.

In order to bring about a rethink here, the legislator is called upon to amend the Building Energy Act (GEG, Gebäudeenergiegesetz) from 2020 so that emissions from the building support structure are limited. In addition, financial incentives must be created for investors in the form of rewards or disadvantages, since up to now no polluter-related damage repair has applied, but the general public has paid for it.

As already mentioned, the potential savings are enormous. Experiences in model projects show that greenhouse gas emissions from the production of the supporting structure can be reduced to up to 70% without changing the marginal criteria (for example, the deformation and settlement criteria or criteria for structural fatigue). Studies according to Wrede/Wong show that the greatest savings potential lies in the foundation structures (approx. 64%) and ceiling structures (approx. 20%). The latter supporting structures are, for example, emission-reducing in the ribbed variant, but more labour-intensive.

However, it is not only the investors who are challenged in the implementation, but also the planners and the construction industry in particular. The planning teams often seem limited in their options. Standards and guidelines often force them into a tight corset of strict requirements. In the meantime, however, many planners have set out to take new innovative paths here and thus also stand out from the competition. The building industry must also make more attractive offers in terms of price with alternative building materials. Modular building and the establishment of cement substitutes are essential "building blocks" on the way to emission-free building.

In the future, it should and must be worthwhile to implement projects in a more sustainable way so that the climate goals can be achieved. In the first step, politics is called upon to create trend-setting incentives. But also planners and the construction industry must also set out to provide know-how and appropriate materials in the future.

What do you think about the topic? How important is sustainability in your construction projects and in the awarding of construction contracts?