A low-resource built environment that makes economic sense

The built environment is a primary consumer of cement, aluminium, steel, and plastic, four of the five materials which account for 55% of the world’s industrial carbon emissions. The sector needs to reduce these emissions by embracing the principles of a circular economy. There are many outstanding core conditions which need to be in place for a truly circular system in the built environment. These include design and construction innovation, fiscal incentives and prioritisation, and updated ethical business models.

To achieve a net-zero transition, it will be necessary to strengthen the supply of and access to 'circular material' on global as well as regional scales. Circular material is defined to be material that is pre-used, low/or zero-carbon, recyclable, or recycled.

The Maltese building industry must help in identifying sustainable alternative construction materials, and then scale the supply of such materials consistently across core construction growth markets. This is essential to enable designers to select and adopt alternative materials.

Policymakers and regulators must support new forms of low-carbon building material with encouragement and supporting regulations so that these can compete financially against lower cost standard material. The management of construction and demolition waste needs reform to maximise re-use and salvage of existing components and materials.

To meet the demands with sufficient supply, government, the private sector and researchers must collaborate together to accelerate the adoption and approval of practical codes and standards that encourage the use of alternative materials in built environment assets. New skills and services are necessary to evaluate and provide quality assurance for pre-used materials.

Financial institutions including banks have a major role to play not only to check compliance with ESG regulation but also to create long term value. ESG risks cover issues ranging from a business’s response to climate change, to the promotion of ethical labour practices, to the way a company grapples with questions around privacy and data management. The local banking sector, both institutional and retail look at ESG risks as an opportunity to educate and transition an economy while discriminating their product packaging to direct and accelerate a much needed uplift of quality in our built environment.