ROCKWOOL Group and
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group have formed a 14-month joint research
effort to demonstrate the climate and other benefits that building renovations
can generate and to assist cities in making cost-efficient investment
decisions.
Buildings today
account for about 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and global
energy consumption. In C40 cities, buildings account for an even higher
percentage of greenhouse gas emissions – up to 60 percent – and thus represent
a significant opportunity for cities to reduce their climate impact while
improving their citizens’ health, wellbeing, safety and even their
productivity.
A key focus of the
research collaboration will be to develop an assessment methodology to assist
cities in measuring this broader range of benefits that energy and related
building renovations can generate.
Mirella Vitale,
ROCKWOOL Group Senior Vice President for Marketing, Communications and Public
Affairs comments “As urban populations continue growing with unprecedented
speed, cities find themselves at the confluence of multiple pressures and
challenges, particularly on energy consumption and climate impacts.
Energy renovation of buildings can dramatically reduce both while positively
affecting occupants’ health and wellbeing”.
ROCKWOOL CEO Jens
Birgersson adds “What’s more, there’s a growing recognition that energy,
acoustic, water management, and aesthetic renovations can also increase
building values and generate additional socio-economic benefits. The
collaboration between ROCKWOOL and C40 will help cities better understand these
multiple and mutually reinforcing benefits and to make cost-efficient
investment decisions to create the greatest positive value for their
communities”.
Kevin Austin, C40
Deputy Executive Director, said "C40’s research has shown precisely what
the world’s great cities need to do in the years ahead if there is any hope of
delivering on the Paris Agreement and preventing the worst effects of climate change.
Cutting the greenhouse gas emissions generated by buildings is absolutely
crucial and quantifying the economic, social and health benefits of these
efforts will make it easier for C40 mayors to deliver on the bold climate
action needed.”
