AP Pension has joined the climate initiative, Reduction Roadmap 2.0, which has as its stated goal to reduce CO2e emissions for newly constructed buildings, so that it corresponds to the construction sector’s contribution to ensuring that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree scenario is not exceeded. By joining the Reduction Roadmap 2.0, AP Pension, as one of Denmark’s largest private builders, supports the climate initiative’s proposal that in 2025 it must be a legal requirement that new buildings must emit an average of no more than 5.8 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year.
In order to boost the reduction of CO2e emissions in construction, one of the country’s largest private builders, AP Pension, has joined the climate initiative Reduction Roadmap 2.0, which wants to make it a legal requirement in the building regulations that new construction in 2025, on average, must emit 5.8 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year. A number that, according to Reduction Roadmap 2.0, needs to be reduced if construction in this country is to help achieve the Paris Agreement’s target of a maximum temperature rise of 1.5 degrees in 2050. The current figure in the building regulations, which new construction over 1,000 square meters must stay below, sounds like 12.0 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year, and the statutory requirement for 2025 was intended in the original law to be 10.5 kilos of CO2e per square meters, so it is a significant tightening.
Over 400 organizations have joined Reduction Roadmap 2.0, but AP Pension is the first major private developer to join the climate initiative. CEO of AP Pension, Bo Normann Rasmussen, believes that an ambitious legal requirement for new construction is necessary if it is to succeed in sufficiently reducing CO2e emissions in the construction industry.
– The construction industry accounts for approximately 30 percent of Denmark’s total CO2e emissions, and if we want to change something about that figure, we need to have ambitious requirements for how much CO2e new construction must emit in the future. The proposal that Reduction Roadmap 2.0 has put forward, we believe, is very ambitious, but also within the range of what can be realistic. If the proposal ends up becoming a reality, it will provide a uniform playing field for all actors in the construction industry here at home. We can only support that, says Bo Normann Rasmussen about joining Reduction Roadmap 2.0, which is an initiative started by the engineering company Artelia and the architectural companies CEBRA and EFFEKT.
Build from Aalborg University has reviewed 163 construction cases for use in assessing the industry’s maturity. All reference buildings that comply with the proposal for the new limit values are wooden buildings/biogenic materials. The only exception in relation to the choice of materials is AP Pension’s concrete building in Fredericia, and these reference buildings confirm Bo Normann Rasmussen that it is not unrealistic to reach the limit value in Reduction Roadmap 2.0.
– At AP Pension, we are constantly working on how, with our property investments, we can set new standards for how CO2e emissions from new construction can be reduced. That is why, among other things, we have one of the country’s largest wooden constructions at Marmormolen in Copenhagen’s Nordhavn, where we have used wood for the load-bearing structures. And in Fredericia, we are running a pilot project with a 3D-printed community house in concrete, where the expected emissions will come down to 5.0 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year., before taking into account the future CO2e reductions as a result of more green power in the electricity grid.
Supports the Paris Agreement
In order to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature increases to a maximum of 1.5 degrees in 2050, Reduction Roadmap 2.0 works with a model where, in the coming years, there must be a gradual decrease in CO2e emissions from new construction. In addition to the 5.8 kilos of CO2e in 2025, according to the model, in 2029 we must drop to 2.7 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year, while according to the model that figure must drop to 0.4 kilo CO2e in 2032 if the Paris Agreement’s goal is to be reached.
– At AP Pension, we work to ensure that all our investments are in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal that in 2050 there must be no more than a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees. Therefore, we are constantly looking at where we can help to influence development in the right direction, and here our real estate investments play a factor. We are already doing a lot in the property area, but I am sure that here at home we will see even more innovative solutions if the proposal from Reduction Roadmap 2.0 becomes a legal requirement for everyone. It is ambitious, but I have no doubt that the construction industry can reach the 2025 proposal from Reduction Roadmap 2.0, concludes Bo Normann Rasmussen.
In the proposal from Reduction Roadmap 2.0, new construction for detached houses in 2025 must emit 4.5 kilos of CO2e per square meters per year., for apartment buildings the figure is 6.5 kilos, while office buildings must emit 7 kilos, which leads to an average of 5.8 kilos. Special types of buildings are not covered by the proposal, this applies to e.g. hospitals, laboratories and swimming pools.
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