The roles of cities in a climate-neutral building process

STINA STENQUIST AND AURORA ØVERENG

Cities should use their mandate in the planning process to guide a development towards climate neutrality and should develop methods to ensure that successful pilot projects become standard for all stakeholders.

To date, many Swedish regions and cities have set more ambitious climate targets than the Swedish national target. For instance, Uppsala’s target is to be climate-neutral by Year 2030. Such tendencies to set ambitious targets are also seen throughout Europe and in the US, with initiatives such as Covenant of Mayors in the EU – gathering more than 10,000 municipalities – and the State of California being a long-time forerunner in environmental policies. Evaluation of transformative solutions

The aim of the Local Arena case study was to evaluate how the transformative solutions identified in the program1 could be implemented in a local context. In this case study, we have assessed the opportunities and barriers regarding the climate transition in the construction process for buildings in Uppsala municipality. Interviews with relevant stakeholders, including local policymakers, developers, designers and material manufacturers, have revealed2 that all the organizations are working with measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the construction process. However, only a few are working towards the objective of attaining net-zero emissions. Although most of us agree that a successful climate transition requires commitment and cooperation from all actors, it is equally important to identify the city’s role in the transition, and to be able to identify pathways towards carbon-neutral processes and practices. Based on the lessons learnt from our case study in Uppsala, we suggest a set of recommendations for cities that want to accelerate their progress towards climate neutrality in the construction process of buildings. We recommend that cities:

• Use their mandate in the planning processes of all comprehensive and detailed development plans to drive development towards climate neutrality. • Identify responsibilities, opportunities, and barriers for reducing climate impact as part of the planning process. • Formulate climate objectives for their municipal real estate companies and the land that they develop. • Continue to act as a frontrunner by conducting pilot projects with the municipal real estate companies and regarding the land that they develop. • Develop methods to scale up the pilot projects within their municipality and within the organization. • Use their collaboration platforms with the local building industry to scale up the successful pilot projects for the whole building industry within the municipality. • Recognize that municipalities are working on a local level and that companies in the building industry are usually working nationwide. Different sustainability requirements in different municipalities may lead to sub-optimal execution of the transition and make it more difficult for contractors/ property owners to limit the climate impacts of their operations. This calls for a system of national coordination.

Literature

Karlsson, I., Rootzén, J., Toktarova, A., Odenberger, M., Johnsson, F., Göransson, L. Roadmap for decarbonization of the building and construction industry—A supply chain analysis including primary production of steel and cement. (2020) Energies, 13 (6), art. no. 4136. DOI: 10.3390/en13164136

Stina Stenquist (IVL), Aurora Øvereng (IVL). Mistra Carbon Exit Local Arena. DRAFT 2021.