Martin Röck
@martinroeck
👨💻⛩️ Scientist-Architect-Dad 🌾🤝 Regenerative Spaces, Resilient Communities 🇦🇹 🇪🇺 Director @riselabs.at Lead Scientist @gbdi.io 🌍👉 #Climate #Policy #Buildings #Materials #LCA
We present the relative change in #cumulative emissions (from energy use, from materials processing) per #capita when applying a specific #strategy, or all of them in the case of the SMART (Strategy #Mix Approach for Robust Trajectories) scenario, compared to the BAU (Business-As-Usual) scenario.
❗Overreliance on energy #efficiency and material #production exceeds national capacities by 2.72 Gt CO2e, 32% of required #reduction. A combined approach including reduced average space per capita, circularity measures, and bio‑based materials achieves additional 2.19 Gt CO2e *WITHIN* #capacities.
🤔 But how can these emission reduction be achieved across Member States, considering their diversity and different capacities for #scaling and implementing low #carbon solutions? (Here we build on context-specific potentials of various carbon reduction and removal strategies doi.org/10.1016/j.je...)
📉 We modeled the past, present, and future building stocks for all 27 EU Member States and evaluated 4096 life cycle emission #scenarios, considering national capacities. Our analysis shows that achieving #targets requires avoiding 8.53 Gt CO2e in 2020-2050 (~10 years of 2020 emissions).
🎯 The #EU aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 relative to 1990 and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Yet, translating these targets into pathways for #buildings and construction is challenging across diverse national contexts. (See: climate.ec.europa.eu/eu-action/cl...)
🎉 New article @nature.com! Ever wondered how the European Union can effectively reduce and remove life cycle #emissions of building construction and operation and reach its #climate targets across Member States? Check this out! 👇 Available #OpenAccess - Free download via: doi.org/10.1038/s414...
🎉👏 #Habitat2030 Sommerfest this Friday! "Wie kann uns eine radikale Dekarbonisierung der Bauwirtschaft bis 2030 gelingen?" Gestartet vor drei Jahren mit dieser folgenreichen Frage, wollen wir feiern was gelungen ist und Kraft tanken für das was bevorsteht.
The link to your substack critique article above doesn't seem to work. Can you pls check and provide a functional link? I'm curious to learn more.
💬 Nice to see the GBDI booth, alongside partners CWSC and LC3 (Low Carbon Cement), served as a vibrant hub for discussion. The conversations during networking events sparked meaningful exchanges, highlighting a shared commitment to turning data into evidence-based actions.
📊 We co-led a workshop “Minimum Viable Carbon Accounting Principles” w/ @gbdi.io, @unep.org RICS, RMI, @riselabs.at, WBCSD, BPIE, CLF, Autodesk, and UNU-FLORES. Great input from participants reinforced urgency and need for harmonized, practical WLC data. Details: sustainable-construction.org/acc/
😃What a week! - Quick recap on the Sustainable Buildings & Construction Summit 2026 in Lausanne, Switzerland, organized by UNEP, GlobalABC and EPFL’s Centre for Worldwide Sustainable Construction. @unep.org @join-globalabc.bsky.social @gbdi.io
Yves-Laurent Sapoval @join-globalabc.bsky.social on money: Real estate is 50% of global wealth. Trillions and trillions on the one hand (wealth and value of assets) - and still a lack of money for solutions to secure these on the other. Solutions need funds to become available, scalable, adaptable!
Btw - to get a full picture on the summit and the program we engage in across these three days you can find the details on that and much more via the official website 👉 sustainable-construction.org/prog/ #BuildForClimate #SustainableBuildings #SBCS2026 #ResilientBuildings #ClimateAction
Impressive keynote by Chinese delegate Wang Wei on the plans and progress for sustainable construction across China. Important advances on energy efficiency in buildings! Not yet covered are material-related embodied emissions --> we partner with Chinese experts to push #EmbodiedCarbon at @gbdi.io
Progress updates from Brazil and Turkye on both the challenge of building - 1,0 Mio additional homes a year (Brazil) - while also reducing emissions and improving resilience to climate change effects. #SustainableConstruction
EPFL and Swiss officials welcoming the delegates, emphasizing importance of sustainable buildings and construction globally - today (1/3 of global CO2 emissions) and in the future (3/4 of buildings in 2050 yet to be built - mostly in Africa and Asia)
Welcome to the Global Sustainable Buildings & Construction Summit in Lausanne, cohosted by @unep.org @join-globalabc.bsky.social @EPFL. We are starting - follow along! 👇
I'm in Cape Town kicking off the NetZero Future Conference 2025. It's a great opportunity to connect with local experts and explore potential collaborations. Together we implement Whole Life Cycle thinking in South Africa and across the continent. Excited for the days to come... Follow along!
We are planning joint activities for advancing #LCA, low carbon and climate resilient construction with partners on the continent. We will develop accessible, easy to use LCA tools to support uptake of low carbon, climate resilient buildings. Curious to learn more or eager to join, get in touch!
WLC-Scenario-Explorer features include: - Interactive exploration of building stock-level WLC results for EU27 and individual MS (2020-2050) - Predefined and custom scenarios: Policy-aligned outlooks (CPOL, APOL), explorative futures - Contribution analysis, hotspots, and much more (see pic)
😃🎉 We are live! Meet the new WLC Scenario Explorer, our open-source tool for interactive exploration of whole life cycle (WLC) emission scenario results on future #buildings and #construction activity in Europe and beyond. Learn how it can help you advance building #decarbonization!
👀 Also, I warmly invite you to join us in session SAS-03: Strategies and Mitigation Pathways at National Building Stock Level 🥳 There we will launch the "WLC-Scenario-Explorer: An Open Tool for Scenario-Based Analysis of Building Stock Whole Life Cycle Emission Potentials"
#PostDoc opportunity on dynamic Life Cycle Assessment #LCA and Whole Life Carbon #WLC monitoring for #buildings and building stocks at #EPFL as part of the Global Building Data Initiative. Work on spatiotemporal methods and models to inform global policy. Apply now! careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne...
The role focuses on #development of novel methods for #environmental modelling of #global building stock dynamics, including strategies for #carbon reduction and removal. You will work on a global #tracker for whole life carbon, and will have the chance to join us in developing GBDI.
🪨Detailed quantification and analysis shows raw material supply (A1) contributes 80 % of total GWP, followed by transport (A2) at 1 %, production (A3) at 7 %, transport to site (A4) at 3 %, construction (A5) at 3 %, use phase (B1-B3) at <1 %, waste processing (C3) at 1 %, and disposal (C4) at 3 %.
🏗️Assessing whole life cycle embodied carbon impacts among these material groups, aluminium exhibits the highest GWP average score of GWP per mass unit at 21 kg CO2e/kg, while concrete has the lowest at 0.09 kg CO2e/kg. Also materials like plastics, paint, or plaster have substantial impact per kg.