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04.12.2019

Cities sign ‘Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment’ – A strong climate action declaration

The energetic refurbishment of buildings is one of the most important climate action measures, as the insulation of buildings offers a huge potential for saving greenhouse gases and money. On the occasion of signing the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment by the World Green Building Council in Brussels, several cities announced that they would step up their climate action efforts to become climate neutral by 2035.

Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki points out: “Climate change is the most crucial challenge of our time and buildings are at the heart of the fight against it. The City of Helsinki is committed to taking very ambitious measures in its building stock to reduce heat consumption and increase the use of renewable energy. About 45 percent of Helsinki's emission reduction potential is related to buildings, so for us it’s the natural place to take climate action.”

The Mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente Santiago, said: “The climate challenge is huge and Valladolid has demonstrated its ambition to improve citizens’ lives by improving our buildings. We are working on innovative energy efficiency projects in public and private buildings, retrofitting our buildings and using solar energy. Becoming the first city in Spain to sign the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment is a great opportunity to demonstrate what must be done.”

“With increasing numbers of municipalities declaring climate emergencies, renovation of buildings should be a key component of their immediate response. BUILD UPON2 is providing the support and the framework to enable meaningful progress towards a decarbonised building stock. We also welcome the new commitments being made at the Summit to deliver deeper levels of renovation and to improve quality of life for Europe’s citizens.” commented Andrew Deacon and Cassandra Silk, the experts of the European city network Climate Alliance.

BUILD UPON2 is a project led by a group of Green Building Councils in the worldwide network in partnership with Climate Alliance and the Buildings Performance Institute Europe. It helps cities lead the charge towards net zero carbon by 2050 by unlocking the huge potential of buildings – developing strategies and solutions to scale up energy efficient building renovation.

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