A global alliance of green building organisations just launched a groundbreaking sustainable finance call to action aimed at bringing the vast majority of buildings up to modern sustainability standards.

The report, “Building Transition: How to Scale and Finance an Inclusive Transition for the Built Environment,” focuses on the 75% of lower-performing buildings that have not yet adopted green building practices.

“Bridging the gap between high-performing and underperforming buildings is essential to achieving our global decarbonisation goals. This report underlines the importance of inclusive investment strategies that unlock capital for the majority of buildings, ensuring that no part of the built environment is left behind,” says Jane Goddard, Deputy CEO of BRE.

“At BRE, we believe that scalable, context-specific solutions—backed by robust data, strong policies, and global standards—are key to transforming the built environment and meeting the urgent challenges of climate change.”

The initiative, led by the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Alliance HQE-GBC France, seeks to close the gap between top performers and the rest of the market.

“Achieving large-scale decarbonisation is only possible with widespread adoption of green building practices,” says Peter Templeton, president and CEO of USGBC.

“Every building needs a decarbonisation plan to help meet emissions reduction goals to mitigate climate change. However, making improvements to the vast stock of existing buildings requires access to capital. “Building Transition” underscores the importance of uniting key stakeholders such as investors and policymakers to create more opportunities for building owners to act.”

With the building sector accounting for a significant share of global emissions, unlocking investments for the underperforming majority is seen as a crucial step in decarbonising at scale.

“Achieving deep decarbonisation across the building sector means leaving no stone unturned – from iconic CBD towers to suburban homes and everything in between. We must ensure green finance is accessible to all, especially those properties yet to benefit from sustainable investment. This report lays out a clear path to bring sustainable finance into the hands of more building owners, empowering them to accelerate change to climate goals,” says Davina Rooney, CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia.

This call to action lays out how to attract capital to this large untapped segment, ensuring that decarbonisation happens across the entire built environment – not just in the elite tier of buildings.

The report identifies a critical gap in the industry – while high-performing buildings have access to green finance and resources, most buildings remain locked out due to a lack of capital. The report offers key recommendations to address this challenge.

  • Policy and taxonomy reform: Stronger policies and taxonomies that direct capital toward underperforming buildings, and context-specific, performance-oriented criteria tailored to diverse building types, ensuring investment reaches all buildings.
  • Global decarbonisation standards: Defining a credible decarbonisation transition and providing common standards, metrics, and decarbonisation tools that can be used globally while allowing for harmonisation across diverse assets and geographies.
  • Resilience in finance: Incorporating adaptation and resilience in real estate finance to account for the impacts of both acute and chronic climate events. Currently, this is not a common practice in real estate finance, and lack of resilience makes lower-performing buildings, the “other 75%,” more vulnerable to becoming stranded assets and suffering from climate impacts.

The new call to action builds on the earlier report, “Financing Transformation: A Guide to Green Building for Green Bonds and Green Loans,” which outlined how green building certifications – such as LEED, BREEAM, Green Star, Green Mark, and HQE – can set the benchmark for sustainable investments.

This new report expands the conversation to ensure that financing solutions are inclusive, enabling more building owners to access the funds needed to make meaningful improvements.

“Building Transition” represents a critical step in making sustainable finance accessible to a wider range of building owners, ensuring that decarbonisation can happen at scale and in every corner of the built environment.

Image: https://www.energy-transitions.org/sector/buildings/