Key takeaways from COP27 for RICS professionals

This year’s Climate Change Conference took place in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt. Convening leaders from around the world, the conference focused on "Together for implementation", with discussions on issues such as finance, loss and damage, climate change and adaptation.

Abdullah Akaish, Senior Public Affairs Officer, Middle East and Africa attended the conference’s Green Zone, and here are some of his key takeaways for the profession:

• The UK government announced over ￡65 million in investment to help decarbonisation by speeding up the development of new green technologies. While funding is a positive step, a recent report from RICS, Decarbonising UK real estate , says that the current package of policies presented by the government is insufficient, and therefore wide-scale policy reform must happen, alongside financial incentives for industry and consumers.
• Scientists estimate that the built environment is responsible for 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure well understood by industry professionals. However, the RICS Sustainability Report 2022 found that the majority of the 4000 surveyed make no measure of embodied or operational carbon in their projects. This emphasises the need for solutions such as the International Cost Management Standard 3 (ICMS 3), the Built Environment Carbon Database and the Whole Life Carbon Assessment to enable the profession to take a whole life approach to measure carbon emissions, with metrics and benchmarks to regulate emissions in line with climate targets.
• The European Commission estimates that 70% of existing buildings need to be retrofitted to meet carbon reduction goals. Research published earlier this year from YouGov in collaboration with RICS found that while 34% of homeowners said they would invest in green technology to lower bills in the future, 45% would be focusing on using any savings to pay for their existing living expenses, meaning more incentives and cheaper options must be made available if the country is to stay on track to meet target and green 15 million properties.

RICS is collaborating with other professional bodies for the public good, to share insights and inspire global action.

As part of the Net Zero Carbon Building Standard coalition , RICS is supporting the development of a standard that provides a single agreed definition and methodology for the industry to determine what constitutes a net zero carbon building. You can help to develop this standard by contributing to the call for evidence .

The Built Environment Carbon Database, a collaboration between a group of industry bodies including RICS, has entered its testing phase and needs your support and feedback to make this the industry standard carbon estimating and benchmarking database in the UK. To get involved visit https://becd.co.uk/entity-section .

Find out more about what we’re doing for Sustainability at rics.org/sustainability .