Dear friends,
When we were finalizing our 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, I was living through one of the longest heat waves that my state of California had ever experienced. Families and workers struggled to stay cool despite the record-breaking temperatures, hospitalizations increased, and over 70 million people lived under a heat alert. We had also just been informed that the average global temperature has warmed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for 12 months in a row. Not everybody lived through that devastating heat wave.
When we ask ourselves how we are doing, we must start with this very real gauge of climate action progress and remind ourselves first and foremost that we are still tragically barrelling into an era of extinction, heartbreaking climate-induced migration, and resource depletion. And as ever, the human impacts of these transitions are borne disproportionately by lower income communities, communities of color, and people living in the Global South, which have historically been damaged most from the destruction of the past. We have transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries, and we are feeling the effects of these transgressions more and more every day.
We must act urgently, together, with thoughtful strategy and care like never before.
As an industry, the global building and construction industry is a major contributor to these growing crises. Specifically around greenhouse gas emissions, which remains one of the most measurable and important impacts we can track, according to the Global Buildings Climate Tracker, a tool used by the United Nations’ Global Status Report on Buildings and Construction, our sector essentially remains unchanged in our emissions despite needing to radically reduce them in order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and curb the worst effects of climate change by 2050. For many other impacts including health, equity, biodiversity and others, we don’t have many data points to be optimistic about. Rapid structural change is still eluding us, and is more urgently needed than ever before.
We must act urgently, together, with thoughtful strategy and care like never before. At Living Future, we hold a vision and a commitment to that action, and we see signs that our world and our building industry are turning collective attention to that path and starting down it. As these intersecting crises become more present in our lives, it is strengthening and growing the global community of people dedicated to transforming the building industry.
This past March, I had the opportunity to travel to Paris for the very first global summit on Buildings and Climate, hosted by the UN. There, roughly 800 global leaders gathered to discuss and strategize the challenges we face: not just greenhouse gas emissions but biodiversity loss, economic justice, resilience and health. The group rallied around the goal of the new Buildings Breakthrough Agenda, which aims to achieve “near-zero emissions and resilient buildings to be the new normal by 2030”. And to my delight, as we sat in the main auditorium for the plenary session, keynote speaker Ciarán Cuffe, a leading member of the European Parliament, declared that a useful goal and framework for hitting this goal is in fact the Living Building Challenge. This is why we continue to show up for this community: we believe that it is critical to clearly articulate and inspire people towards our ultimate goals. We are proud to have created tools and resources that are actionable, accessible and evolving to support the growth of our movement as we make these ambitious shifts.
Now, our next step is to harness that growing interest in regeneration along with the high ambitions and commitments of global leaders towards near-zero emissions and resilient buildings as the new normal by 2030.
We are also encouraged to see that the term ‘regeneration’ is on the rise. For us at Living Future, we define this term as follows: Regenerative work creates a positive impact across social, cultural, and ecological systems. This is the path to a common living future. We see the term ‘regeneration’ being used to signify a growing ambition to go beyond “sustainable”: many people and organizations see that we have to take big leaps towards a better future for all, not just small steps, if we want to really see the change we need. But also, regeneration as a goal speaks to a reality of our world that grows every day: we have already lost so much, and we lose more every day. The work of regeneration, which the Living Building Challenge articulates in detail, is different from the work of building sustainably because it involves the critical act of healing, of reconciliation, and of maintenance and care. These actions need more of our time and attention: we will not simply build our way out of the problems we face. We will build, yes, but we will also repair and maintain, we will need to be good stewards of the precious buildings and resources we have. And so it is wonderful to see the growing interest in regeneration, because it gives much needed momentum to the holistic work that we are deeply passionate about in the Living Future community.
And to be clear, that momentum is deeply and urgently needed. As industry leaders, the community of Living Future practitioners and champions have a key role to play in the transformation we MUST accomplish. We are here to support you in this work, but this takes all of us, using our unique voices in our unique communities, to really achieve the transformation we need in the next decade.
Now, our next step is to harness that growing interest in regeneration along with the high ambitions and commitments of global leaders towards near-zero emissions and resilient buildings as the new normal by 2030. We intend to continue our leadership beacon work, while providing more “on ramps” for more of the industry to join us by removing as much friction as possible, without diluting the commitment and action required. We need to see action at scale, and that means structural shifts in how buildings are built, renovated, and operated, how our supply chains work, the levels of transparency and accountability we incorporate into our work, and how our buildings are regulated. At Living Future, we provide inspiration, support, and community to expedite the journey towards a regenerative building sector. We will be there at the table to push for ambitious goals and measure our industry’s progress towards them. We hope you will join us.
In collaboration,
Lindsay Baker
CEO, Living Future
