Graz Declaration for Climate Protection in the Built Environment

The document has already been supported by the City of Graz and the TU Graz among other organisations stressing important goals such as:

• Governments must have a vital leadership role in establishing and enforcing long-term priorities and must create effective policies enabling the transition towards net-zero GHG-emission built environments.
• Specific GHG-emission targets and budgets are needed for the construction and property sectors. To avoid lock-in effects, binding requirements must be introduced by 2025 due to the built environment’s long lifespan and impacts.
• Operational energy on its own is not a sufficient metric. It is necessary to limit both resource use and GHG-emissions over the full life cycle. The regulation of life-cycle related GHG-emissions must, therefore, cover the production, construction, operation, maintenance, replacement, refurbishment and end of life of buildings.

The Graz Declaration is a concluding statement from the SBE19 Graz Conference discussions that provide concrete planning and objectives to limiting GHG-emissions through the building life cycle. eseia already supports the Graz Declaration and invites all of its Members to do the same by signing and distributing information about it.

The document itself can be downloaded and signed at the conference website.

The SBE19 Graz was organised in cooperation with the eseia Member Organisation the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (Boku), ETH Zürich and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.