Cities driving the shift to rights-based and circular construction practices

The dominant economic model in the built environment is fundamentally unsustainable (Santamouris, 2001, Hurlimann et al. 2020). This paper examines the characteristics of the current model, then highlights ways in which cities can be instrumental in a shift towards human rights-based and sustainable construction practices. It concludes by providing cities with a rights-based framework for action. What gets built, where, and how, has a determining influence on the realisation of human and workers’ rights, as well as on cities’ ability to mitigate and strengthen resilience to climate change. However, the current predominant “take, make and waste” economic model in the built environment poses interconnected climate change and human rights risks throughout the building lifecycle: from the extraction of materials, to land-use planning and siting decisions, to building practices themselves, and to a current emphasis on demolition and rebuild over the reuse and adaptation of existing buildings. The built environment already contributes 37% of global energy-related global carbon emissions, through a combination of “embodied carbon” in materials, and energy consumed while a building is in use. Compounding increases in material use to date – for example developing countries and the Asia Pacific region have seen the demand for construction materials increase by ten times between 1970 and 2010 (IPBES 2019) – the built environment will be responsible for a third of the projected doubling of global material use by 2060 (Global ABC 2022). The Club of Rome and others have highlighted that “it is glaringly obvious that changes to production and consumption structures within all countries are urgent and essential for the global climate transition”, while also calling for an allocation of climate responsibility according to contribution to the crisis (Earth4All 2022).