Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance
2022 – $25,000 Embodied Energy
The Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA) is a global network of cities working strategically and urgently toward a carbon neutral future within the next 10 to 20 years—the most ambitious and comprehensive GHG emission reduction targets undertaken by any cities across the globe. Created in 2015, CNCA supports leading cities worldwide that are working aggressively toward a zero-carbon future to advance their own transformational efforts, collaborate with each other and key partners to overcome barriers, foster innovative approaches, and share lessons with other cities ready to pursue similar goals.
CNCA’s mission is to mobilize transformative climate action in cities in order to achieve prosperity, social equity, resilience and better quality of life for all on a thriving planet.
CNCA’s Approach
CNCA mobilizes transformative, game-changing climate action through the following seven strategic focus areas:
- Funding transformative climate action to mobilize the development, adoption and implementation of game-changing climate policies in cities.
- Exerting collective influence on and advocate for policies from other decision-makers to reduce emissions not directly controlled by cities.
- Advancing methodologies, standards and governance tools for carbon neutrality planning, implementation, impact measurement and continuous improvement.
- Fostering peer learning among climate vanguard cities, so they can learn from each other and go further and faster together.
- Cultivating transformational leadership so city sustainability directors can excel in their roles as change-makers.
- Helping cities communicate more effectively to advance their carbon neutrality work.
- Prioritizing a just carbon neutral future by integrating climate justice into ambitious climate action.
Climate Justice
CNCA is committed to advancing a just carbon neutral future through approaches that recognize and redress the disproportionate burdens and the disproportionate benefits of the fossil fuel economy by prioritizing climate action that advances the well-being of low-income people, Indigenous Peoples, communities of color, immigrants and refugees and other historically marginalized communities. CNCA’s approach to climate justice is outlined in the Climate Justice Statement and related work includes learning and grant opportunities to support local climate justice through collaborative projects with these priority communities.
Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon in Europe
Reducing embodied carbon in the built environment is one of CNCA’s strategic program areas. Published in 2020, one key outcome of this work to date is the City Policy Framework for Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon, which documents in detail a set of 52 policies that cities can enact to reduce embodied carbon. Policy interventions are identified across five areas of city influence: Zoning & Land Use, Building Regulations, Procurement, Waste & Circularity, and Financial Policies. Each policy has been evaluated by experts for potential carbon reduction impact, cost efficiency, ease of implementation and enforceability. The framework was developed in partnership with One Click LCA, and Architecture 2030.
In 2021, CNCA launched an exciting new project Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon in Europe, a three-year project in partnership with Built by Nature and the Laudes Foundation which aims to foster widespread adoption of ambitious local, national and regional policies that will reduce embodied carbon and increase the uptake of bio-based materials in the built environment in Europe.
By delivering technical support, engaging communities and industry stakeholders and facilitating peer learning, CNCA is creating the conditions for eleven European cities to lead in the development and implementation of innovative policies that will transform the built environment. As we close out year two of the project important results are clearly visible.
Technical assessments conducted with partner One-Click LCA in the first half of the project allowed city teams to identify the most promising policy levers at their disposal to reduce embodied carbon and promote the use of bio-based materials. All eleven cities are now at work developing and implementing tailored policy interventions that will lead to implementation in the final year of the project.
Some of the most ambitious policies range from carbon scoring land sales and setting carbon benchmarks for buildings to density bonuses and innovative methods to track the carbon savings from the reuse of construction materials in new builds and renovations.
Building the narrative around the many co-benefits of low-carbon buildings and bio-based materials is essential for cities to both advocate internally and engage stakeholders. Capacity building sessions are helping cities break down silos by working across departments in policy development and implementation. CNCA is also helping cities elevate success stories through communication materials and policy guidelines, demonstrating the potential and making embodied carbon and bio-based materials more accessible to communities.
Success at the city level is helping drive change at the national levels and in the European Union. The project has seeded the growth of national coalitions in Finland, the UK, France and Spain. These coalitions are actively advocating for national policy that better enables cities to reach their embodied carbon targets and to eliminate regulatory red tape that hampers the uptake of bio-based materials.
Year two has also seen CNCA, together with partner Eurocities, extensively advocate for change at the European level, where a unified approach to accounting for whole-life emissions has yet to be introduced in EU legislation.
In 2022 the focus has been on helping shape the revision of the Energy Performance and Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Construction Products Regulation (CPR). Recommendations integrating the concepts of whole life carbon, embodied carbon, and bio-based materials were transmitted through bilateral exchanges with MEPs, rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs of the EPBD and CPR policy files. In 2023 focus will shift to the upcoming Revision of the Waste Framework Directive.
Interest in the project is steadily increasing as CNCA continues to share learnings from the project widely. In 2022 CNCA presented progress at the Klosters Forum (TKF22), the Berlin Sustainable Built Environment Forum, the Barcelona Smart City Expo and at events with Energy Cities and the World Green Building Council.
2023 is set to be an exciting year with cities ramping up implementation, success stories proliferating and awareness of the role of bio-based materials increasing across Europe. A new phase of work, supported by the Seed Fund, will explore opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the design, construction and operation of buildings, public space and infrastructure while also reducing the adverse impacts of such processes on frontline communities. CNCA will engage built-environment experts across the field to explore how North American cities can best advance this vision through the infrastructure they build and the codes and regulations that influence private construction, developing.