Climate change is no longer just an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ but a living reality, causing daily disasters like violent storms, heavy snowfalls, unbearable heatwaves, hurricanes, cyclones, flash floods, rampant wildfires, and droughts. Our homes and buildings should provide refuge, mitigating risks and enhancing safety and sustainability to face these storms ahead.
The inconvenient truth – why should we care?
Building resilience, defined as increasing our capacity to cope, adapt or recover from disasters, is crucial. Investing in resilient infrastructure could save trillions of dollars from climate change damages. A United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report recorded an average of 361 extreme weather disasters per year between 2000-2019, affecting approximately 91 million people in 2019 alone. By 2050, over 1.6 billion urban dwellers may regularly be exposed to extreme temperatures, and 800 million coastal residents in 570 cities will be vulnerable to rising sea levels and coastal flooding.
A range of factors affect our resilience to climate change, including the design and location of buildings. These factors include rising sea levels, temperature extremes, fierce winds, heavy snowfall, floods, or unprecedented precipitation.
Part of the problem or part of the solution?
According to UNEP, the building and construction industry is responsible for around 38% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, contributing to climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The sector must urgently minimise its impact while providing resilient structures. Efforts to reduce ‘operational’ CO2 emissions have progressed, but ’embodied’ carbon emissions from traditional materials like cement, steel, and aluminium have lagged. UNEP’s report highlights the need to decarbonise building materials by avoiding unnecessary production, shifting to regenerative materials, and improving traditional materials’ decarbonisation.
Eva-Last is committed to sustainable building materials. Their composite materials, made from renewable bamboo fibres and recycled plastics, outperform traditional timber and reduce deforestation and plastic waste. With a lifespan of decades, these materials are manufactured using solar energy, further reducing its impact on the environment.
Choosing eco-friendly materials like those from Eva-Last, we can build resilience against climate change and safeguard our environment for future generations.
