03/06/2025
Climate goals : built heritage conservation as a cure to nature
According to reports, mid-2025 global carbon emissions remain at critical and alarming levels. While there are reduction plans being urgently pushed at the global level by various international bodies and other actors, we are still falling short of the necessary 43% reduction to align with the 1.5°C target based on the Paris Agreement signed in 2016. According to this accord, global temperatures should be kept at below 2 degrees Celsius while aiming for 1.5 degrees by 2050. As of 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that embodied carbon emissions from the built environment were responsible for 12% of global carbon emissions while with operational carbon at approximately 28%.
In relation to the built environment, constructing new buildings also heavily adds to the carbon emission. The construction industry adds to the entire greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the range of activities and segments such as extraction, production, processing, transportation, and assembly of each product and component of buildings. This may also include the upkeep, replacement, dismantling, disposal, and end-of-life elements of the systems and materials that comprise the asset and let alone, the building’s operational emissions once completed and occupied.
With the ever developing practice in heritage conservation, there has been enough evidence and practical wisdom to support and demonstrate that retaining and reusing buildings as opposed to demolishing and new constructions is a viable approach and helps in the lowering of carbon emissions and reducing many environmental burdens.
Pursuing and implementing schemes such as adaptive reuse, renovation, retrofitting and other preventive conservation activities on old buildings can be done to ensure their utility and socio-cultural relevance.
