Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme

About

SBC - A channel for doing better with less

The Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme (SBC) was launched in the UN-Habitat Governing Council Side Event on 20 April 2015. The SBC programme will improve knowledge of sustainable construction, develop sustainable solutions, and share that knowledge and those solutions globally. Although an abundance of solutions already exist, there is still plenty of room for more innovations. Through the programme, all major projects in the field of sustainable construction can be brought together under the same umbrella.

Barrio - Pekka Huovila

The goals of the programme are to promote resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation efforts, and the shift to SCP patterns in the buildings and construction sector. These goals are being operationalized through several concrete work areas:

  1. Foster enabling frameworks to implement SBC policies;
  2. Promote Sustainable Housing, including affordable and social housing;
  3. Enhance Sustainability in the Building Supply Chain;
  4. Reduce climate impact and strengthen climate resilience of the buildings and construction sector; and
  5. Promote knowledge sharing, outreach and awareness raising

The programme involves sharing good practices, launching pilot projects, supporting projects in developing countries, emerging economies and industrialised nations alike, creating cooperation networks both regionally and internationally, and committing actors around the world to sustainable construction.

In the pipeline

The Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme has selected three projects for funding from the 10YFP Trust Fund. The selection comes after a call for proposals which attracted project propositions from the around the world. The three projects come from the regions of Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific regions:

  • "Implementation phase of the Sustainable Construction Policy in the Aburrá Valley", by the Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá in Colombia.
  • "Mainstreaming sustainable social housing in India", by a Consortium comprising of Development Alternatives (DA),The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), UN-Habitat and Low Carbon Building Group at Oxford Brookes University (OBU), in India.
  • "Development of Sustainable Housing Design Tool “SHERPA”", by the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP), in Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Nepal.