Arup, in collaboration with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a leading green building advocate and global developer of the LEED green building program, today launched its first report on the U.S. commercial real estate sector at COP28.
“The State of Decarbonization: Progress in U.S. Commercial Buildings to 2023” examined three decades of data and found that the U.S. has made significant but uneven progress in decarbonizing commercial real estate.
This inaugural State of Decarbonization report is the first to provide both critical historical data and targeted opportunities for future improvements. Importantly, it identifies areas of opportunity to decarbonize more quickly, including significant retrofitting of refrigerated warehouses, which have seen emissions increase in recent years, and older commercial buildings, where buildings built before 1980 represent approximately 40 percent of total U.S. commercial floor space and could take advantage of nearly half of the Commercial Energy Efficiency Tax Credit expanded by the Inflation Control Act of 2022, a key lever for decarbonization, according to the report.
The report highlights that the United States has the tools necessary to reduce building-related emissions, and new federal funding provides the real estate industry with a unique and immediate opportunity to deploy important improvements quickly and widely across the country. For example, investments from the Clean Energy and Climate Action provisions of the Controlling Inflation Act could help the building industry meet its pro rata share of the Paris Agreement goals as early as 2029.
The increasing availability and cost-competitiveness of proven decarbonization strategies has led to a 37% decrease in the carbon intensity of commercial buildings on average, and a 26% increase in energy efficiency. However, despite these significant reductions, the report found that emissions across the commercial building sector have remained stable since 1990, a result of a significant increase in the total floor area of buildings.
“This report affirms the progress made so far in decarbonizing U.S. commercial buildings and serves as a powerful call to action to deploy proven solutions even faster and at scale across all sectors and communities,” said Peter Templeton, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council. “We can and must work with partners inside and outside the building industry to seize the immediate opportunities to reach our urgent goals.”
“This report is a critical resource for understanding where we are now, where we need to go in the near future, and what strategies we can use to achieve important climate goals,” said Robert Kaye, Americas climate and sustainability services leader at Arup. “To achieve our goals, cities and states will need to accelerate their decarbonization progress from where they are today.”
The State of Decarbonization 2023 report was released as Arup and other global collaborators come together at COP28. Arup participated in the annual COP meeting for the first time at COP26, demonstrating the company's dedication to tackling climate change in the built environment.
Download the State of Decarbonization: U.S. Commercial Buildings Progress Report 2023