4 Levers to Help Scale Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Housing
The built environment accounts for over one-third of global emissions. In rapidly developing markets like India and Mexico, a surge in housing construction faces a pivotal choice: lock in high-carbon infrastructure or, with the right interventions, enable resilient, low-carbon designs and create millions of green jobs.
When supported by integrated policies, targeted finance and adaptive business models, these markets have the potential to leapfrog to net-zero carbon and resilient buildings (NZCRBs), reducing emissions, strengthening climate resilience and delivering important socio-economic benefits — from lower energy bills to healthier living conditions.
Yet, progress remains slow: NZCRBs make up less than 1% of global building stock, with residential buildings comprising an even smaller percentage. While demand for efficient housing is growing rapidly, fragmented policies, limited financing and pilots that fail to scale still limit progress. By focusing on residential housing where these challenges converge and urgency is greatest, this article aims to unpack the most persistent barriers.
To unlock large-scale solutions and investment, it is essential to first clarify a shared definition of NZCRBs and then carefully map the systemic barriers to overcome.
What Are Net-Zero Carbon and Resilient Buildings?NZCRBs minimize energy demand, employ renewable energy and are built or retrofitted using low-carbon or recycled materials. They are designed to withstand climate shocks, such as heat waves, flooding and storms, while reducing emissions through the entire life cycle of the building from material sourcing to operation to end-of-life.
There are many types of NZCRBs, including those designed for residential, commercial and institutional uses. Unlike traditional sustainability-certifiable buildings, which primarily focus on reducing energy use and environmental impact, or resilience-oriented buildings, which emphasize physical durability and disaster risk reduction, NZCRBs deliberately integrate both priorities. They simultaneously address decarbonization and climate adaptation, aligning the built environment with net-zero carbon pathways and safeguarding communities against intensifying climate hazards. This holistic approach ensures that homes are not only energy-efficient and low-emission but future-proofed and capable of maintaining safety and livability during extreme events.
The relative balance between the “net zero” and “resilience” dimensions of NZCRBs can differ across geographies. In medium-income, temperate regions with stronger energy policies, like in Mexico and Latin America, the emphasis often leans toward decarbonization, maximizing efficiency, renewable integration and carbon-neutral materials. In contrast, in climate-vulnerable and rapidly urbanizing regions such as India and Southeast Asia, resilience features may be prioritized, which could include passive cooling, flood-proofing and structural durability, with net-zero measures introduced incrementally. This geographic differentiation underscores the importance of context-specific pathways: All NZCRBs share common principles, but their design and implementation must reflect local climate priorities, regulatory frameworks and socioeconomic realities.
While NZCRB design principles can apply broadly, our focus is scaling both net-zero and resilient residential dwellings, given their outsized impact and opportunity. These homes offer clear benefits: lower energy costs, healthier indoor environments and reduced vulnerability to climate risks. However, key barriers persist, such as limited affordability, lack of tailored finance, weak policy enforcement, entrenched unsustainable practices and limited technical capacity — especially in emerging markets.
What’s Holding NZCRBs Back? And How Can Sustainable Buildings Be Scaled?Smaller developers and building owners often face high upfront costs when shifting to NZCRBs. Energy-efficiency upgrades frequently place the financial burden on owners, while tenants capture most of the benefits. This split-incentive challenge is common in rental housing markets and hampers upgrades. In India, for instance, landlords of low-income rental units are often reluctant to invest in passive cooling or energy-efficient retrofits because tenants capture the utility savings but lack the security of tenure to justify contributing to upfront costs. Similar dynamics have been documented in Mexico’s rental housing sector, where building owners hesitate to finance rooftop solar or insulation improvements without mechanisms to share benefits and costs with tenants.
Risk‑sharing models, such as joint investments among owners, cooperative financing and owner–tenant agreements help distribute costs more fairly. In Europe, green lease arrangements are emerging to align incentives, explicitly linking rent structures to energy performance so both landlords and tenants gain from efficiency upgrades. These innovations tackle resistance and unlock investment, boosting investor confidence, fostering transparency and reducing the initial costs of action.
For residential buildings, pairing inclusive finance and supportive policy frameworks specifically addresses affordability and equitable access. However, policy gaps and weak enforcement continue to slow progress. Both local and national governments play critical roles as market catalysts. Well‑designed and consistently enforced building decarbonization and resilience policies — integrated across housing, energy, utilities and planning —are needed to directly target regulatory fragmentation and unsustainable practices. For example, the Eco Niwas Samhita, India's Energy Conservation Building Code for residential buildings, sets mandatory efficiency standards for building envelopes, shading and ventilation, helping reduce heat and energy use in low- and middle-income housing.
In Mexico City, while detailed NZCRB‐type standards are less widespread (especially for low-income housing), the city’s complementary technical standards have been incorporating energy-efficiency and sustainability requirements into the building permit regime, especially for larger residential and mixed-use buildings. These are being updated to cover more resilience dimensions as well.
Stakeholder collaboration is often missing in practice, leading to fragmented standards, duplicated efforts and limited uptake of sustainable building solutions. In cities, global developers experiment with pilot NZCRB projects, but without platforms to share data or lessons, results remain siloed, stifling replication and market confidence. Stakeholder collaboration is therefore essential. Cross-sector knowledge hubs that share best practices and facilitate data exchange are crucial for setting standards and supporting government benchmarking for greater transparency and accountability. These platforms turn lessons learned into practice, provide businesses with supply chain and market intelligence, and address technical gaps and market barriers by creating the conditions for NZCRBs to move from pilots to market standards.
The Four Levers to Scale NZCRBsAgainst this landscape of challenges, WRI's All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative has identified four critical levers for driving transformative change: coordinated action, supportive policies, tailored finance and business model innovation.
Each of the levers is mapped to different barriers. By directly targeting specific challenges like affordability, weak policy signals and lack of technical or financial innovation, these strategies provide a coherent pathway to scaling. While the four interconnected levers are essential for scaling NZCRBs in India and Mexico, the levers can also be applied globally.
1) Commitment and CollaborationScaling NZCRBs requires coordinated action across national and local governments, developers, financial institutions, utilities and community groups. City action plans and national roadmaps have proven critical in Europe, and more recently also in Mexico and India, to help bridge policy gaps by identifying retrofit targets and integrating housing, energy and planning policies. These strategies ensure coherence between local ambitions and national climate goals. Knowledge hubs and multi-stakeholder task forces that bring together architects, builders, investors, utilities, regulators and civil society can harmonize standards, track implementation and share best practices across markets. Embedding social inclusion within these structures ensures that vulnerable and marginalized groups are represented in decision-making, leading to equitable and effective outcomes. Without this vertical, horizontal and inclusive coordination, policies risk missing cross-cutting issues, such as aligning building codes with electricity access or linking housing subsidies to low-carbon design.
2) Supportive PoliciesMandatory energy codes for life-cycle emissions and climate-resilience standards accelerate mitigation, while incentives like tax breaks and fast-track permitting reduce compliance costs for builders and investors. Robust codes paired with life-cycle assessments ensure that emissions are addressed from construction through operation and end-of-life, preventing carbon lock-in and enabling a true accounting of environmental impacts. These tools provide a foundation for scaling NZCRBs that remains sustainable over decades. Effective programs often sequence voluntary initiatives to pilot new approaches, gradually transitioning to mandatory codes as supply chains and markets mature. This approach enables innovation at early stages, while safeguards, such as subsidies and social housing, ensure that standards do not exclude low-income communities, due to affordability constraints, as they take effect.
3) Financial Instruments and MechanismsFinance is a significant and complex barrier to NZCRB adoption. Residential buildings require substantial upfront and long-term capital, which smaller developers or households often cannot access. Effective solutions include:
- Sovereign green bonds fund climate-friendly buildings, but typically only large developers can access them.
- Blended finance of philanthropic and public funds can reduce risk to enable the participation of smaller firms and affordable housing projects.
- Performance-based investments channel financing toward projects that achieve energy savings and align capital deployment with measurable results.
- On-bill and property assessed clean energy (PACE) financing tie repayments to utility bills or property taxes to reduce upfront cost of construction or retrofit.
Case Study
Mexico’s Hipoteca Verde and EcoCasa
By giving homeowners and developers tailored financial support, Mexico shows that affordability and sustainability in the housing sector can go together. Under Mexico’s sustainable strategy called Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action, two programs stand out:
• Hipoteca Verde, run by Infonavit, which is both the national housing agency and the country’s single largest mortgage lender, offering additional mortgage lines for homeowners to install energy-efficient appliances.
• EcoCasa, run by Sociedad Hipotecaria Federal, which funds developers to design and build homes to passive standards that minimize energy use.
Both are financed through blended mechanisms combining national funds and international support. These programs reach low-income families, enable retrofits or efficient new builds, and embed sustainability into Mexico’s housing policy framework.
4) Business Model InnovationsPilots often stall without scalable delivery models. Successful approaches feature shared-risk structures such as third-party ownership, joint ventures and performance-based contracts like those offered by energy service companies. Creating enabling conditions for one-stop-shops is also essential, as these entities streamline design, financing and construction, reduce transaction costs and ensure consistent project delivery. Together, these models lower market entry barriers for developers and households, build investor confidence and help move NZCRBs from isolated pilots to market scale.
Case Studies
Bootes, India — One-Stop Net-Zero Construction
Bootes, a construction firm in India, uses a single turnkey contract to deliver sustainable buildings by managing engineering, procurement and construction. The use of prefabricated modules enables speed and cost savings. For example, a public net-zero library in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh was completed in just 90 days. The library generates 100% on-site energy, reducing carbon emissions by around 85%, cutting embodied carbon via use of locally sourced low-environmental impact materials, implementing water conservation through rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling, and integrating ventilation and daylighting strategies for healthy indoor environments. While the company works across building typologies, its prefabricated modules are relevant for residential housing too as they allow for rapid scale-up and reduced material waste and construction time and cost. The company guarantees energy performance, uses joint ventures to share capital risk and aligns projects with India’s national net-zero targets. By handling every stage under one contract, Bootes cuts red tape for residential housing and public infrastructure.
Energiesprong, Netherlands — Retrofit at Scale
Energiesprong is a Dutch-born initiative that retrofits social housing to net-zero energy in under 10 days. Prefabricated solar façades and insulated rooftops are combined with 30-year energy performance contracts, allowing cost recovery through energy savings. Now operating in the UK, France and Germany, Energiesprong acts as a market facilitator, coordinating housing agencies, builders and financiers. Its strength lies in bulk procurement, standardization and public-private co-financing. Energiesprong proves that retrofitting thousands of homes can be as scalable and efficient as new construction.
No One Size Fits All: Coordinating Models, Instruments and Institutions for NZCRBsSustainable buildings require significant, long-term investment for both construction and ongoing operation, as maintaining strong environmental performance is an ongoing process. To scale NZCRBs, it is essential to combine funding strategies, business models and supportive policies or regulations in practical ways.
Within the first two years, governments and partners should establish the foundation for scaling NZCRBs by carrying out baseline assessments of residential building stock and emissions, along with gap analyses to identify priority needs. Clear decarbonization targets should then be set and integrated into city and national climate action plans.
Early pilot projects, as seen in Mexico, India and Northern Europe for example, should deploy financial tools such as green mortgages, subsidies for low-income households, and on-bill finance, allowing authorities to test which models are most effective for lowering upfront barriers across different contexts and building types. At this stage, it is also crucial to establish multi-level governance coordination platforms that bring together housing ministries, municipalities, utilities, developers, financiers and communities to ensure alignment and reduce fragmentation.
In the mid-term (3 to 5 years), the focus shifts to institutionalizing these foundational steps. Targets and lessons from pilots must be translated into enforceable building codes, performance standards and fiscal policies that move beyond voluntary adoption. Incentive-based programs, particularly those designed for low-income housing, can scale up proven approaches while ensuring equity. Building institutional capacity for monitoring, compliance and enforcement will be essential to ensure targets are not only aspirational, but achievable in practice.
By the long-term (next 10 years), NZCRB goals should be fully integrated into broader frameworks of urban planning, zoning, ESG reporting and fiscal reform. This period should see the expansion of climate-resilient housing programs, the implementation of life-cycle carbon requirements in planning rules and the full alignment of residential building standards with net-zero targets. International partnerships will be key to support technology transfer, innovation and access to advanced materials and designs. Finally, adaptation and equity must remain at the center of all strategies, ensuring that decarbonization delivers not only emissions reductions but also greater resilience and inclusive benefits for all communities.
Scaling NZCRBs is not just about building homes; it is about transforming entire systems by aligning policy, finance and innovative business models to unlock market-wide change. When inclusive governance is part of the status quo, countries can move from pilot projects to full-scale and widespread adoption.
modern-building-kolkata-india.jpg Cities India Mexico Cities Buildings Urban Efficiency & Climate energy efficiency Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Roxana Slavcheva Rizkika Zulhijjiani Adriana Kocornik-Mina Sumedha Malaviya Shyny Sam Fairuz LoutfiAs Extreme Wildfires Threaten Forests, Indigenous Leadership Offers Solutions
Indigenous Peoples and local communities are among the world’s most effective forest stewards. Research continues to show that the lands they manage often lose less tree cover, store more carbon and support higher biodiversity than surrounding areas.
Yet a new report from WRI and WWF-Australia finds that these lands are disproportionately affected by increasing wildfires. Fueled by climate change, deforestation and decades of colonial-era policies that long restricted Indigenous rights to manage their lands — factors largely beyond the control of Indigenous Peoples and local communities — wildfire risk is rising for the very communities that have done the most to protect these forests, while contributing the least to climate change.
Here, we unpack the drivers behind these findings and explore how restoring autonomy to Indigenous Peoples and local communities can help reduce forest fire risk.
Indigenous and Community Lands Face Rising Fire RisksThe report analyzed satellite data from 2001 to 2024 in four fire-prone countries — Australia, Brazil, Canada and the United States — and compared tree cover loss within forests from both fires and other causes across three land management types: Indigenous- and community-held lands, protected areas and all other lands.
Who Are Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples?
In the context of this report, local communities are groups of non-Indigenous individuals and families who live in the same area, share common interests and maintain strong social, cultural and economic ties to the land. They vary in size, identity, internal equity and the way they manage and use the land. This definition includes Afro-descendant communities.
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct groups who self-identify as Indigenous and assert their rights and self-determination as stewards of their resources, environments and territories. They have deep ancestral ties to collectively owned lands, along with unique languages, knowledge systems, beliefs and livelihoods rooted in precolonial and pre-settler histories.
Across the four countries combined, Indigenous- and community-managed lands lost just 6% of tree cover over
Extreme wildfires: a growing threat — and a call to support indigenous and community leadershipthe past two decades, compared with 11% in state-managed protected areas and 18% in lands under other management. In every country except Canada, Indigenous- and community-held lands saw less overall forest loss than other lands and, in most cases, even less than protected areas. In Canada, rates of forest loss were similar across all land management types.
Yet in Indigenous and community lands, a much greater share of the forest loss — about 62% — was driven by fire; slightly less than in protected areas but nearly twice the share seen in other lands. Most of these fires are not started by the communities themselves; many originate from land-clearing fires in surrounding areas, and, in some cases, fire is used deliberately to pressure or displace communities. This suggests these lands may face greater fire-related impacts as global forest fire activity continues to rise.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities are highly effective forest managers, playing a critical role in preventing deforestation and other permanent forms of forest loss. As a result, their lands see less overall forest loss than other land types, but a larger share of that loss is driven by wildfires. As wildfires increase around the world, these lands are increasingly affected by climate change, deforestation in surrounding areas and restrictive fire policies, all of which amplify wildfire risks.
Indigenous and community lands in Brazil are particularly vulnerable to rising fire activity, having seen a fifteenfold increase in fire-driven forest loss since 2001. Much of this loss occurred in the Amazon rainforest, where forest fires were once very rare but have become increasingly common due to decades of deforestation and climate change.
Deforestation and Climate Change Fuel the Wildfire CrisisFrom the Amazon rainforest to Australia’s dry forests, extreme wildfires are no longer rare events. While fire can play a beneficial role in maintaining some ecosystems, climate change is making heat waves and droughts more frequent and severe, intensifying fire behavior and pushing ecosystems beyond their historical thresholds. In some regions, deforestation worsens these conditions by drying out forests and increases the risk that land-clearing fires will escape into surrounding areas.
Deforestation drives fires in BrazilIn Brazil, deforestation is a key driver of increasing wildfire activity. Clearing forests for agriculture fragments the landscape, allowing heat, wind and flammable grasses to spread deeper into intact forests. This makes them more fire-prone, increasing the risk of land-clearing fires escaping under hot, dry conditions and igniting surrounding forests. El Niño-driven droughts compound these risks by further drying out vegetation. Strong El Niño conditions leading into the 2016 and 2024 fire seasons, combined with high deforestation rates, fueled extreme wildfires in both years. As the planet warms, such events are expected to become more frequent, further amplifying wildfire risks across the country.
About 1.3 million hectares of forest — an area larger than the size of Puerto Rico — in Indigenous and community lands burned in those two years alone. Most of this loss occurred in the Amazon, home to more than half the Indigenous population in Brazil.
Climate change has increased fire risk in Australia, Canada and the USIn southeastern Australia, where over 84,000 Indigenous Peoples live in fire-affected areas, extreme fires burned 1.2 million hectares of Indigenous-held forest during the devastating 2019–2020 fire season. Strikingly, Australia accounted for about 32% of all fire-driven tree cover loss on Indigenous and community lands across the four study countries, despite containing only 8% of their total forest area. More than 20% of Australia’s temperate broadleaf forests burned during that season — roughly 10 times the typical amount that burns each year. In this region, climate change has made extreme heat events at least twice as likely, increasing the risk of severe wildfires.
In Canada and the U.S., climate change is extending fire seasons and increasing the likelihood of extreme heat and drought, raising the risk of extreme wildfires like those seen in Canada in 2023. Over the study period, roughly 2.3 million hectares of forests on Indigenous land burned across the two countries.
How the Wildfire Crisis Impacts CommunitiesBeyond forest loss, wildfires can devastate communities by destroying homes and sacred sites, displacing families, harming health and threatening food security and livelihoods. For many Indigenous Peoples, the loss of nature to fire is deeply personal, often likened to losing a family member.
In Canada, where Indigenous Peoples make up just 5% of the population, they accounted for more than a quarter of all wildfire evacuees between 1980 and 2021. Of the 16 communities evacuated five or more times during this period, 14 were Indigenous reserves. About 90% of smoke-related evacuations involved communities where more than half the population identified as Indigenous, leaving many at severe risk from smoke-related health impacts.
Studies have shown that Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Brazil and the U.S. are also disproportionately vulnerable to wildfire impacts, which often compound existing social and economic inequities.
While Indigenous Peoples are among the most affected, they are also among the most knowledgeable about managing fire on their lands. Their traditional practices, rooted in long histories of observation, stewardship and place-based knowledge, offer proven strategies to reduce wildfire risk and build resilience against wildfires.
Cultural Burning as a Traditional Management SolutionCultural burning, a traditional land management technique practiced by many Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years, involves small but frequent, low-intensity burns usually carried out during cooler, wetter periods. These burns reduce flammable fuel loads, encourage biodiversity and support livelihoods.
Unlike land-clearing fires or climate-fueled extreme wildfires, which tend to cause long-term ecological damage, cultural burning mimics natural fire cycles, such as those started by lightning, and helps prevent the buildup of dry, flammable vegetation. It also encourages new growth and maintains healthy, resilient landscapes.
Low intensity burns, conducted as part of Indigenous cultural burning practices, reduce fuel loads, support ecosystem health and maintain traditional land management methods. Image by Emma Renly/WRI Extreme wildfires are high intensity events that cause widespread forest loss and long-term ecological damage. They are frequently driven by extreme weather, uncontrolled land clearing and accumulated vegetation. Image by Matt Howard/WRI Colonial legacies hamper traditional practicesColonial governments often disrupted and criminalized cultural burning in favor of blanket fire-suppression policies, even in ecosystems that depend on periodic fire. By treating all human-set fires the same, these policies ignored the ecological benefits and cultural significance of traditional burning, increasing the risk of more extreme wildfires. In Australia, for example, disrupting Indigenous fire management in southeastern forests led to the accumulation of flammable vegetation and contributed to recent severe fires.
These policies also disregarded Indigenous sovereignty by restricting the use of Indigenous Peoples’ long-standing land management practices. Reversing this legacy requires recognizing and supporting Indigenous leadership in traditional fire stewardship.
Reviving Traditional Fire Stewardship Shows PromiseAround the world, there is a slow but growing movement to restore cultural burning practices. Policy shifts in Australia, Brazil, Canada and the U.S., are beginning to recognize and support Indigenous-led fire programs that combine traditional knowledge with modern firefighting technique. Collaboration among Indigenous leaders, fire agencies and scientists can help ensure these methods are applied effectively and adapted to current climate challenges. Across these regions, several successful initiatives demonstrate how cultural burning can deliver ecological, social and economic benefits:
- In northern Australia, the Arnhem Land Fire Abatement project conducts early dry season burns to prevent large, late-season wildfires. By reducing the area burned in hotter months, the program lowers greenhouse gas emissions, generates carbon credits to help fund community programs and shows how Indigenous-led fire management can deliver both environmental and economic benefits.
- In Brazil, Indigenous fire brigades in the Xingu Indigenous Territory combine traditional fire management with satellite monitoring to protect villages, crops and forest edges from escaped land-clearing fires. other Indigenous Peoples-led efforts coordinated with federal fire agencies, these actions help maintain biodiversity, safeguard food security and strengthen community resilience against extreme wildfires.
- In British Columbia, Canada, Indigenous-led fire crews are partnering with provincial agencies to reintroduce cultural burning in fire-prone landscapes. Low-intensity burns are being used to revitalize native plant species, improve habitat for deer and other wildlife and reduce the buildup of flammable debris. These efforts not only lower wildfire risk but also reconnect communities with traditional fire stewardship practices.
- In the U.S., the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) builds capacity for cultural burning while strengthening coordination with fire agencies. In northern California, the U.S. Forest Service works with the Yurok and Karuk Tribes to apply traditional burning techniques that not only reduce wildfire risk but also increase the availability of plants used in basket weaving — restoring both ecological health and cultural traditions.
Reviving tradition to reduce wildfire risk
In Oregon, U.S., Lomakatsi Restoration Project, a nonprofit restoration organization, shows how Indigenous-led stewardship reduces wildfire risks while strengthening communities. Partnering with the Klamath tribal community and other Tribes with ancestral lands in the region, and with support from WRI’s Cities4Forests program and other partners, Lomakatsi crews thin overcrowded forests, carry out cultural and prescribed burns and build fire breaks to prevent catastrophic fires like the 2020 Oregon Labor Day Fires, which destroyed homes and sacred sites near the rural town of Chiloquin.
Beyond reducing the risk of catastrophic fire, these efforts protect water sources, restore wildlife habitat, build community resilience and strengthen the community-based tribal workforce. Lomakatsi trains and employs local Tribal members and youth in ecological restoration, creating stable career pathways in rural economies where opportunities can be limited. By partnering with tribal communities to revive cultural burning and blending it with modern restoration techniques, Lomakatsi Restoration Project underscores what research already shows: Indigenous peoples are among the most effective managers of fire-prone forests.
Supporting Indigenous land rights and enabling community-led fire management are essential to reversing the disproportionate wildfire impacts on Indigenous and community lands. Reviving traditional fire stewardship is essential for containing wildfires and protecting land, but it won’t succeed in isolation. Alongside efforts to restore traditional practices, governments, NGOs and the private sector must create the enabling conditions for Indigenous-led solutions to thrive.
Traditional fire management techniques like cultural burning can help restore ecosystems and promote biodiversity by encouraging new growth. Image by David Clode/WRITo support these efforts, five key areas of action can help restore balance to fire-affected landscapes and empower communities in these regions:
5 levers for action- Securing and upholding Indigenous and community land rights. Legally recognized land rights and reversing colonial-era fire suppression policies give communities the authority to manage forests using traditional practices. Recognized, protected and enforced rights allow communities to prevent illegal logging, restrict harmful land use and invest in long-term fire prevention that help reduce forest carbon emissions.
- Funding and training Indigenous- and community-led fire brigades. These brigades are often the first — and sometimes only — responders in remote regions. Long-term funding ensures they can maintain trained teams, operate year-round and access essential tools like protective firefighting clothing, water trucks and communications equipment. Investing in these brigades strengthens local capacity to prevent, detect and respond quickly to fires.
- Expanding access to fire monitoring tools and early warning systems. Modern satellite-based tools can alert communities to new fire outbreaks, illegal burns and deforestation in near-real time. Paired with training, these platforms enable communities to act quickly, share evidence with authorities and hold perpetrators accountable. Expanding access also requires reliable connectivity, technical support and local-language interfaces wherever possible.
- Ending deforestation in critical biodiversity areas. In many regions, wildfire risk is closely linked to deforestation. Stopping deforestation not only preserves biodiversity and carbon storage but also removes a primary cause of uncontrolled fires. Policies to halt illegal clearing, enforce supply-chain accountability and promote sustainable land use are critical for long-term fire prevention.
- Taking action on climate change. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to preventing the hotter, drier conditions that lengthen fire seasons and increase fire intensity. Without urgent climate action, other fire prevention measures will be less effective in the long term.
Tools to support Indigenous- and community-led fire management
Platforms like LandMark map the boundaries and legal status of Indigenous- and community-held lands worldwide to increase awareness of the threats they face and their contributions to sustainably managing the environment. Mapping these territories enable Indigenous Peoples and local communities to document land encroachments and advocate for stronger legal protections. Other platforms like Global Forest Watch are also increasingly being used by Indigenous Peoples to identify and respond to wildfires in near real-time using satellite-based fire alerts that provide timely information on active fires and their locations.
A Rights-Based Path to Fire-Resilient ForestsExtreme wildfires are not inevitable. Tackling their root causes — deforestation, climate change and the suppression of traditional fire stewardship — can protect forests and the communities who depend on them.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not simply stakeholders in this effort; they are leaders with deep ecological knowledge and proven fire management strategies. Supporting their autonomy, rights and solutions is both a matter of justice, and one of the most effective strategies we have to safeguard biodiversity, protect carbon stores and build climate resilience in an era of escalating wildfire risk.
getty-images.jpg Forests climate change Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities fires biodiversity Climate Resilience deforestation Type Finding Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Authors James MacCarthy Jessica Richter Stephanie Borcea Isabela BarrigaRELEASE: Ocean Panel Commits to Five More Years with New Workplan to Propel Ocean Action
New York (September 24, 2025) — The High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel) today committed to five more years of urgent, coordinated ocean action, backed by a bold new workplan through 2030. The Panel — comprising of 18 heads of state and government from coastal and island nations — works to accelerate progress toward a healthy ocean, resilient communities and a sustainable blue economy, amid mounting threats from climate change, overfishing and biodiversity loss.
At its annual meeting, held at the United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, the Ocean Panel unveiled a renewed agenda focused on moving decisively from commitments to action — and from ambition to global leadership. The updated workplan prioritizes strengthening global ocean data systems, which remain underfunded despite being essential for informed, sustainable decision-making. It also includes launching a new ocean finance working group to help mobilize the estimated $550 billion needed each year to support the shift to a sustainable ocean economy, by unlocking investments from both public and private sectors.
Efforts will also be intensified to accelerate the roll out of Sustainable Ocean Plans, with the goal of achieving 100% sustainable management of the world’s national waters. Panel leaders are calling on all ocean and coastal states to join them in this ambition through the 100% Alliance.
The announcement builds on momentum from the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France (UNOC3), where world leaders underscored the ocean’s role in tackling climate change, protecting biodiversity and sustainable development. Themed “The Road from Nice to Belém and Beyond: Advancing Ocean Action for Climate, Nature and People”, the Ocean Panel meeting included discussions on national ocean climate actions and collective progress toward the Paris Agreement goals.
“The ocean’s future depends on sustained global cooperation and the Ocean Panel’s next five years will play a critical role in driving it,” said Surangel S. Whipps Jr., President of Palau and Ocean Panel Co-chair. “The threats facing the ocean are too great for short-term efforts. They require long-term commitment, bold leadership and impactful delivery. The new workplan will ensure the Ocean Panel continues to at least 2030, with a strong focused on improving ocean data, advancing sustainable fisheries and boosting the ocean’s role in tackling climate change.”
“The Ocean Panel has significantly raised global ambition and deepened our understanding of how to sustainably use and protect our ocean,” said Jonas Gahr Støre, Prime Minister of Norway and Ocean Panel Co-chair. “However, the ocean continues to suffer from mounting challenges. The Ocean Panel will work together and with partners to scale up solutions that protect nature, support people and create jobs, and strengthen the ocean’s role in tackling climate change.”
Ocean Panel members reaffirmed support for recent developments in global ocean governance, including the High Seas Treaty reached the 60 ratifications needed to enter into force last week. 11 Ocean Panel members have ratified the treaty so far, complementing their commitment to 100% sustainable ocean management.
Members also welcomed the World Trade Organization Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, ratified on September 15, 2025. This critical agreement targets harmful subsidies that encourage overfishing, setting the stage for further actions to protect vulnerable fish stocks.
“It’s clear that we must place the ocean at the heart of global action, recognizing its vital role in regulating our planet, sustaining biodiversity, and supporting communities. That is why the UAE championed ocean–climate action as hosts of COP28 and is now continuing its long tradition of marine and coastal conservation through its Sustainable Ocean Plan journey as part of the Ocean Panel,” said Her Excellency Ms. Razan Al Mubarak, IUCN President and UAE’s Sherpa to the Ocean Panel. “Nature conservation — from mangroves to marine life — is central to sustainable ocean planning. As we look ahead to the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the UAE and COP30 in Belém, this collective action will be critical to delivering the just, inclusive, and sustainable ocean economy the world urgently needs.”
Key priorities of the Ocean Panel’s new 5-year workplan:
- 100% Sustainable ocean management: Supporting member countries to complete and implement Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs), while continuing to call on all coastal and ocean states to join this commitment through the 100% Alliance campaign
- Global Ocean Observations: Securing reliable, accessible ocean data by expanding observation systems and calling for collective investment in this critical global resource.
- Ocean-Climate nexus: Expanding nature-based solutions such as mangrove and seagrass restoration, and championing the integration of ocean-based solutions into countries’ national climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) through the Blue NDC Challenge.
- Sustainable fisheries and aquatic foods: Advancing climate-resilient seafood systems that support nutrition, livelihoods and economic security for coastal communities.
- Mobilizing finance: Addressing the $550 billion annual ocean finance gap by unlocking scalable, inclusive investment solutions aligned with sustainability goals.
- Equity and inclusion: Embedding equity into all aspects of governance, and elevating the voices of Indigenous peoples, women, youth and local communities.
About the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy
Co-chaired by Norway and Palau, the Ocean Panel includes Australia, Canada, Chile, Fiji, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Norway, Palau, Portugal, Seychelles, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Together, these 18 nations represent 42% of the world’s coastlines, 37% of global EEZs, 18% of the world’s fisheries, 20% of the world’s shipping fleet. The Ocean Panel is supported by the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean. Based on the shared understanding of the need to improve the state of the ocean, the countries in the Ocean Panel are committed to producing national sustainable ocean plans with the aim of sustainably managing 100% of the ocean area under national jurisdiction. Learn more at oceanpanel.org. World Resources Institute (WRI) serves as the Secretariat for the Ocean Panel. Learn more at www.wri.org/our-work/topics/ocean.
Local Action Helps Mainstream Net-Zero, Climate-Resilient Buildings in Mexico and India
Through the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative, WRI Mexico, WRI India and partners worked closely with local governments, developers and community stakeholders to advance net-zero carbon and resilient buildings (NZCRBs) in four cities. These local interventions are proving essential to mainstreaming NZCRBs, building capacity, and launching demonstration projects in additional cities and at the national level.
Advancing Local Action with Global ImpactBuildings are responsible for 36% of energy use and nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions globally. Without rapid decarbonization, the sector’s emissions could double by 2050 due to urbanization, population growth and increased demand for cooling as the planet warms. In this context, net-zero carbon and resilient buildings offer a major opportunity to align climate goals with economic and social benefits. Alongside cutting emissions, they can reduce energy bills, improve indoor air quality, lower urban temperatures and enhance disaster resilience.
Learn More: 4 Levers to Help Scale NZCRBs
Despite progress in some areas, NZCRBs still make up less than 1% of global building stock. We unpack the major barriers and lay out four levers that can help them scale faster. Read more.
Since 2023, the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative has worked with cities in India and Mexico to accelerate NZCRB implementation through the development of national whole life carbon roadmaps and City Action Plans. These roadmaps and action plans not only chart technical solutions in the buildings sector, but also identify the policy, finance, governance shifts and partnerships needed to make these solutions mainstream. Participating cities and countries gain access to tailored technical assistance, peer-to-peer learning and global advocacy platforms to raise ambition and unlock investment in NZCRBs. The initiative also works to link local pilot projects with national strategies and global best practices. This helps ensure that innovations can be scaled, adapted and replicated — bridging the gap between isolated success stories and market transformation.
The program puts a strong focus on how NZCRBs can unlock co-benefits and spur economic growth. Mexico, for example, has positioned energy-efficient construction as a competitive asset that can reduce operating costs, attract green investment and create new jobs. Additional benefits highlighted in India include improving public health through better air quality, reducing energy poverty and mitigating extreme heat in cities.
Through the All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative, both Mexico and India are seeing local action spur national momentum toward a net-zero built environment.
Mexico: A National Roadmap Takes ShapeIn Mexico, WRI and Sustentabilidad para Mexico (SUMe) supported the cities of Monterrey and Hermosillo in developing City Action Plans, building on their near-term climate plans and decarbonization commitments. The cities identified transformative actions for the buildings sector from a whole lifecycle of carbon perspective and mapped them according to their urgency and priority.
These local efforts have helped catalyze a broader debate on how to embed net-zero targets into national housing subsidies, public works tenders and building codes. They have also fed into a series of working groups led by WRI México, SUMe and local stakeholders to design Mexico’s National Roadmap to decarbonize the built environment through the full building lifecycle. A national workshop in July 2025 convened more than 100 leaders from the construction sector, government, academia and civil society. This milestone event marked the culmination of a year-long process of technical studies, stakeholder consultations and scenario analysis designed to chart a credible pathway for decarbonizing Mexico’s buildings sector by mid-century.
The new roadmap sets out clear actions for the federal administration, including the adoption of mandatory energy codes, incentives for retrofits and low-carbon materials, and public procurement policies that prioritize NZCRBs. By linking climate ambition with economic opportunity, the plan positions Mexico to reduce building energy use by up to 35%, cut operating costs for households and businesses, stimulate demand for national green industries and create thousands of skilled jobs.
Participants stressed that without coordinated implementation across ministries and levels of government, the roadmap’s targets will remain aspirational, making cross-sector collaboration essential to turn vision into action. Ministries responsible for energy, housing and industry have already expressed interest in aligning their sectoral strategies with the roadmap’s milestones.
India: Cities Lead the Way on NZCRBsWRI India and the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) worked with two fast-growing cities, Nashik and Thiruvananthapuram, to turn national climate targets into actionable local plans for NZCRBs.
In Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, WRI collaborated with municipal officials, state agencies, architects and community groups to co-develop and launch a City-level NZCRB Action Plan. The plan identifies 20 priority actions spanning the entire building lifecycle, including developing carbon databases for materials, introducing green procurement guidelines, integrating NZCRB principles into urban zoning and building permits, and adopting demolition waste recovery systems. Thiruvananthapuram’s commitment builds on its existing 17 MW of municipal rooftop solar capacity and seeks to extend energy efficiency gains to both new and existing buildings. The plan also incorporates climate resilience measures to counteract rising urban heat and monsoon flooding risks.
Nashik, a historic city in Maharashtra, is seeing unprecedented infrastructure investments driven by the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, making this a critical moment for the city to consider its carbon footprint in the buildings and construction sector. Nashik has already established its Climate Action Plan, yet this does not address embodied carbon emissions. In the newly developed action plan for building sector decarbonization, WRI India and Nashik’s local government set transformative actions that address both operational and embodied carbon, such as mainstreaming the use of renewable energy, adopting energy efficiency measurement in all building types, establishing a database of low and zero-carbon materials that are locally produced, and collaborating with academic institutions to provide skill development programs related to building decarbonization.
With India’s urban population projected to reach 600 million by 2036, these interventions aim to help curb rising building emissions, which already make up 32% of the country’s total. At the same time, they can enhance liveability and equity for a rapidly urbanizing population. The two cities’ experiences will inform similar roadmaps in other urban areas, creating a blueprint for integrating climate, development and housing priorities.
From Roadmap to RolloutThe next phase in both countries focuses on implementation and scale.
In Mexico, stakeholders are working to establish a national steering committee that will oversee roadmap execution, track progress and coordinate policy across ministries. Pilot projects will be launched in public buildings to demonstrate cost-effective pathways to NZCRBs, with the goal of attracting blended finance and private sector participation.
In India, Thiruvananthapuram will move from planning to pilot implementation, starting with municipal facilities and affordable housing projects that integrate solar PV, passive cooling and efficient materials.
Both initiatives will require sustained capacity building for local governments, training programs for construction trades and stronger data systems to monitor building performance. WRI and partners will continue to facilitate knowledge exchange between cities and countries, ensuring lessons from early adopters inform global standards and funding priorities. Key areas for future collaboration include:
- Recommend and, where appropriate, found, steering committees to monitor, coordinate and enforce NZCRB standards in Mexico and India.
- Develop pathways to launch pilot projects under the City Action Plans and roadmaps to demonstrate scalable NZCRB delivery across public and private assets and infrastructure.
- Share a compendium of international best practices to mobilize private sector finance through incentives, blended finance and business model pilots, and learn from experts in the field.
- Evaluate and iterate, using monitoring frameworks embedded in city plans and national strategies to refine policy and expand impact.
The All in for a Net Zero Built Environment initiative reflects a pivotal inflection point: from defining net-zero carbon and resilient buildings to building actionable roadmaps grounded in local realities and ready to be implemented at scale. Globally, the initiative has expanded its network to include a consortium of local and global partners (such as the World Green Building Council, local green building councils and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) and participating jurisdictions. This provides a platform for cities, countries and industry representatives to share lessons on financing retrofits, scaling renewable integration and overcoming institutional barriers.
Early impacts demonstrate that roadmaps are not just documents — when co-created with stakeholders and tied to concrete investment and policy measures, they can become powerful accelerators of market change.
All in for a Net Zero Built Environment, supported by the We Mean Business Coalition, brings together key global partners — led by WRI, the World Green Building Council and World Business Council for Sustainable Development — to accelerate the implementation of net-zero carbon and resilient buildings by enhancing cross-sector and multi-level coordination. The objective is to accelerate market transformation and transition to a healthier, greener, more inclusive built environment. monterrey-mexico.jpg Cities Cities Buildings net-zero emissions Urban Efficiency & Climate Type Project Update Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Roxana Slavcheva Sumedha Malaviya Shyny Sam Fairuz LoutfiSTATEMENT: Now is the Time to Enforce, not Delay, the EU Deforestation Regulation
Brussels / The Hague (September 24, 2025) — The European Commission has once again proposed delaying the enforcement of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), pushing back its start date for a second year in a row. The new implementation date would be late December 2026. By postponing enforcement yet again, the EU risks undermining the credibility of the law, its reliability as a partner to commodity-producing countries and its global climate commitments.
The regulation is designed to prevent commodities linked to deforestation and forest degradation – such as coffee, cocoa, soy, beef, leather, palm oil, rubber and wood – from being sold on the EU market. The EUDR is one of the most comprehensive environmental laws ever passed, with the potential to reshape global supply chains.
Following is a statement by Stientje van Veldhoven, Vice-President and Regional Director for Europe of World Resources Institute:
“The European Commission’s new proposal to delay the EUDR is troubling. Forest loss reached record levels in 2024, with 6.7 million hectares of tropical rainforest destroyed — an area nearly the size of Ireland. Every minute, we lose the equivalent of 18 football fields of tropical forest. At a time when Europe itself is reeling from extreme summer heatwaves and record forest loss due to devastating wildfires, postponing protections for forests sends exactly the wrong signal.
“The Commission argues that certain systems aren’t ready yet. Yet all the elements legally mandated in the regulation to support implementation — IT systems, guidance, FAQs, and benchmarking — have been in place for months. Many businesses have already invested in traceability, from using satellite monitoring to training smallholder farmers. Producer countries such as Malaysia, Ghana and Vietnam are also building national systems to support compliance. Delaying for the second time undermines companies that have proactively prepared, sending the wrong market signal thereby creating additional uncertainty for businesses.
“Regardless of the delay, the EUDR, which already passed through the full legislative cycle in 2023, should remain as is. There is political pressure to erode the law by, for example, introducing a so-called ‘no-risk’ country category. Such a move would make the EUDR much less effective as it would undermine the due diligence system, which is at the core of the EUDR. Such a clause would create large loopholes for deforestation-linked products. Our analysis shows that exempting EU Member States or other countries from the declaration requirement would allow unscrupulous actors to launder products linked to deforestation — such as leather from Brazil — into EU supply chains.
“The EU accounts for 13–16% of global deforestation through imports, despite having just 7% of the world’s population, giving it a disproportionate responsibility. We call on the EU Council and EU Parliament to reject this delay and move forward with the enforcement as planned. Further delay would not ease implementation challenges; it would jeopardize forests, climate goals, Europe’s credibility.”
Forests Europe deforestation commodities Type Statement Exclude From Blog Feed? 0What Does ‘Green’ Procurement Mean? Initiatives and Standards for Cement and Steel.
Decarbonizing cement and steel production — which together are responsible for nearly 14% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions — will be critical to achieving national and global climate goals. But progress has been slower than in other sectors, like transportation and power, for several reasons.
One prominent reason is the role of CO2-emitting chemical processes in steel and cement production. On top of that are entrenched manufacturing practices, slow turnover of equipment in plants, and the relatively high cost of low-carbon technologies — all of which make it difficult to introduce changes that would decrease emissions.
This is where “green procurement” comes in. Green purchasing, or procurement, is emerging as one of the most effective policy measures to drive early demand for low-emissions cement, concrete and steel. Within the public sector, green procurement means prioritizing the purchase of low-carbon products in government-funded construction projects. In the private sector, it means leveraging companies’ purchasing power to decarbonize their supply chains and investments.
The past few years have seen several green procurement initiatives and policies for cement and steel introduced around the world. However, they often differ in key areas — including reporting requirements, definitions of what qualifies as “green” or low-emissions, and the ambition of their emissions-intensity benchmarks. These differences can limit comparability and create challenges for suppliers and buyers operating across multiple jurisdictions.
To drive meaningful global progress, these initiatives need to work together. Harmonizing green procurement measures through aligned definitions, data frameworks and methodological approaches is essential to ensure they are interoperable and mutually reinforcing. Importantly, harmonization does not require uniformity. Rather, it means that different systems should be able to interact and align in meaningful and consistent ways.
Measuring Product-Level Emissions
Initiatives and policies around green procurement are increasingly based on “emissions-intensity” benchmarks; for example, how much CO2 is released per ton of cement or steel produced. Such benchmarks help determine if a product meets certain standards or qualifies for a certification.
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To set these benchmarks, programs usually require manufacturers to report standardized emissions data for each product. This is done through Type III Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), which are like nutrition labels for environmental impacts. EPDs are based on Product Category Rules (PCRs), which explain how environmental impacts, including but not limited to GHG emissions, are measured and reported for specific product types. At the foundation of this system is lifecycle assessment (LCA) data with emissions and resource-use information that suppliers use to develop their EPDs.
While EPDs and PCRs provide standardized rules for measuring and reporting product-level emissions, the way green procurement initiatives and policies apply these tools can vary significantly.
The following are examples of green procurement initiatives and government policies currently being implemented for cement, concrete and steel:
Initiatives (benchmarks listed in Table 1):- The Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI) was started under the UN Industrial Development Organization. IDDI launched the Green Public Procurement Pledge in September 2022 to encourage governments to report environmental data and use low- and near-zero-emissions cement/concrete and steel in their construction projects. IDDI has nine current member countries, including Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- World Economic Forum’s First Movers’ Coalition (FMC), is a public-private partnership that was launched in 2021 targeting companies’ procurement of near-zero-emissions goods across seven emissions-intensive sectors. FMC includes 102 global companies, each of which has committed to using its purchasing power to create markets in at least one of these sectors. So far, 27 companies have committed to the steel sector target and seven companies have committed to the cement/concrete sector target.
- The Climate Group’s SteelZero and ConcreteZero initiatives are corporate partnerships committed to using net-zero steel and low- and net-zero-emissions concrete (and effectively cement, as its key ingredient). SteelZero, launched in 2020, is a partnership with ResponsibleSteel and currently includes 42 companies. ConcreteZero, launched in 2022, is a partnership with WBCSD and WorldGBC and currently includes 36 companies.
- In the United States, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allocated $4.5 billion to the General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to purchase construction materials with “substantially lower embodied carbon” under the Federal Buy Clean Initiative. Between 2023 and 2024, GSA and FHWA published low-emissions benchmarks (see Table 2) based on EPA interim guidance. In late 2024, EPA announced a draft approach under its Carbon Labeling Program. While these steps laid the groundwork for Buy Clean implementation, the Trump administration has since directed agencies to disregard these priorities at the federal level. The future of U.S. involvement in international efforts like IDDI and FMC is uncertain, though states like California, Colorado and New York continue advancing their own Buy Clean policies.
- The European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) allows it to establish “ecodesign requirements” for iron, steel and other products beginning in 2025 based on sustainability characteristics, including product carbon footprints. Cement ecodesign requirements will be established through the EU Construction Products Regulation (CPR) and will guide the bloc’s development of mandatory green public procurement rules and incentives through the ESPR. However, it remains unclear how the ESPR will align or interact with international initiatives, such as the IDDI, or national efforts.
- Ireland enacted a policy in 2024 mandating green public procurement of cement and concrete. It requires the purchase of blended cements with at least a 30% of the clinker (the most emissions-intensive ingredient in cement and concrete) replaced with supplementary cementitious materials for all public construction. The mandate also requires cement and concrete EPDs to be submitted when bidding for public contracts. This is the first stage of a decades-long strategy to decarbonize the Irish cement and concrete sector.
- Türkiye started implementing a green public procurement program for cement in early 2025. The government has placed a limit on the amount of clinker allowed in cement used for public construction projects, requiring public contracts to use cement with 20% clinker replacement through 2029 and 25% clinker replacement from 2030.
These green procurement initiatives focus on product-level accounting. Green procurement policies that require project-level emissions accounting (which considers the whole construction project, and not just individual materials used) have been enacted in countries such as Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and Sweden.
As part of the SteelZero initiative, member organizations must make a public commitment to buying and using 100% net-zero steel by 2050 and an interim commitment to buy and use low-emission steel for 50% of their steel requirement by 2030. Photo by Anthony Fomin/Unsplash Comparing Benchmarks and Decarbonization Ambition of Product-Level ProgramsThe main product-level green procurement initiatives and policies for cement and steel come with varying definitions of the regulated material. They set different benchmarks for what is defined as “low-emissions” or “near-zero emissions.” They also differ in their emissions-intensity benchmarks; the technological readiness of decarbonization options that can meet these benchmarks; and their targeted share of total purchases (for example, how much of their total purchases need to be “green”).
Understanding these differences will help guide conversations about harmonizing standards as low-carbon products become more available.
Among the above initiatives, the FMC is most focused on spurring the adoption of cutting-edge decarbonization technologies in the industrial sector. FMC recruits cement- and steel-consuming companies with high climate ambition. All signatories commit to making sure that at least 10% of their cement, concrete and/or steel bought by 2030 qualifies as “near-zero” (benchmarks given in Table 1). The FMC’s high decarbonization benchmarks target a small portion of the market, requiring technologies and approaches that have significant decarbonization potential but are less developed and not yet ready for large scale deployment. The aim of such a program is to spur investment and help create early demand for near-zero emissions products, even if they currently come with a “green premium” due to higher production costs. Scaling these solutions will require strong policy support and investment to drive down costs over time.
IDDI aims to encourage widespread uptake of green public procurement policies in member countries by offering different levels of commitment with decreasing carbon-intensity benchmarks. It allows member countries four commitment levels: The first only requires data reporting, while subsequent levels require increasing use of low- and near-zero products. IDDI allows multiple options for target setting, including methodologies and benchmarks from IEA, Responsible Steel, FMC, SteelZero, ConcreteZero and national green labels. This enables countries to set targets based on nationally determined circumstances. As with FMC, products meeting higher levels of commitments will likely have a green premium.
SteelZero and ConcreteZero have less stringent benchmarks but aim for wider market penetration compared to FMC. They set interim targets to purchase 50% low-emissions steel and concrete by 2030, increasing to 100% net-zero products by 2050. These two initiatives offer companies more flexibility by allowing multiple pathways for certification, such as through ResponsibleSteel, SBTi or other related standards. Products meeting these benchmarks could have a green premium.
Table 1. Benchmarks and standards adopted by public and private procurement initiatives
Initiative/ PolicyType
Definitions & BenchmarksTargeted Share of Purchases FMCPublic/private
Near zero emissions steel: 50-400 kg CO2e/t.
Near zero emissions cement: 184 kg CO2/t.
Near zero emissions concrete: 70-144 kg CO2/m3.
10% by 2030IDDIPublicMultiple options including using IEA, Responsible Steel, FMC, SteelZero, ConcreteZero standards and national labels.
IEA:-
Low Emission Steel: 400 - 2400 kgCO2e/t crude steel
Low Emission Cement: 240 - 750 kgCO2e/t cement Near Zero Steel: 50 - 400 kgCO2e/t crude steel Near Zero Cement: 40 - 125 kgCO2e/t cement
Signatories to decideSteelZeroPrivateLow emission steel: 350-2000 kg CO2e/t.Net zero steel: As close to zero as possible.50% low emission by 2030
100% net zero by 2050ConcreteZeroPrivateLow embodied carbon concrete: 150-382 kg CO2/m3.
Net zero concrete: As close to zero as possible with at least 90% mitigation.30% low carbon by 2025
50% low carbon by 2030
100% net zero by 2050
Notes: Range for steel, cement and concrete depends on scrap share, clinker ratio and concrete compressive strength respectively. Source: Authors’ analysis
Table 2. Benchmarks and standards adopted by public procurement policies in various countries
Government or AgencyType of PolicyMaterialDefinitions & BenchmarksU.S. GSARecommendation/prioritySteel20th Percentile: 611-2,228 kgCO2e/t
40th Percentile: 713-2,324 kgCO2e/t
Better than Average: 760-2,408 kgCO2e/t
Cement20th Percentile: 0.751 kgCO2e/kg
40th Percentile: 0.819 kgCO2e/kg
Better Than Average: 0.858 kgCO2e/kg
Concrete20th Percentile: 228-321 kgCO2/m3*
40th Percentile: 261-362 kgCO2/m3*
Better Than Average: 277-402kgCO2/m3*
U.S. FHWARecommendation/priority
Steel
20th Percentile Unfabricated Reinforcing Bar: 0.614 kgCO2e/kg
40th Percentile Unfabricated Reinforcing Bar: 0.678 kgCO2e/kg
Better Than Average: 0.755 kgCO2e/kg
20th Percentile Unfabricated Hot-rolled Structural Sections: 0.713 kgCO2e/kg
40th Percentile Unfabricated Hot-rolled Structural Sections: 0.816 kgCO2e/kg
Better Than Average: 1 kgCO2e/kg
20th Percentile Steel Deck: 1.63 kgCO2e/kg
40th Percentile Steel Deck: 1.85 kgCO2e/kg
Better than Average Steel Deck: 2.32 kgCO2e/kg
Concrete20th Percentile: 146-406 kgCO2e/yd3**
40th Percentile: 168-448 kgCO2e/yd3**
Better than Average: 177-478 kgCO2e/yd3**
CaliforniaRecommendation/priority
Steel
Hot Rolled Structural Steel: 1.01 tCO2e/t
Hollow Structural Sections: 1.71 tCO2e/t
Steel Plate: 1.49 tCO2e/t
Concrete Reinforcing Steel: 0.755 tCO2e/t
ColoradoRecommendation/priority
Steel
Fabricated Steel Reinforcing Bar "Rebar": 1030 kgCO2e/t
Fabricated Hot-rolled Steel: 1,220 kgCO2e/t
Fabricated Plate Steel: 1,730 kgCO2e/t
Fabricated Hollow Structural Sections: 1,990 kgCO2e/t
CementCement: 1,112 kgCO2e/tConcreteConcrete: 232-580 kgCO2e/m3New YorkRecommendation/priorityConcreteConcrete: 275-541 kgCO2e/y3European UnionRecommendation/priority;
Green taxonomy/ labels
Steel, Cement/ConcreteTo be determined starting 2025 through ESPR and Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator ActIrelandMandateCementMaximum Clinker Content of Cement: 70%TürkiyeMandateCementMaximum Clinker Content of Cement: 80%Note: While standards created by the U.S. GSA and the FHWA were planned to be replaced by those adopted by the EPA, implementation of the Federal Buy Clean Initiative has been halted.
*Depending on compressive strength
**Depending on compressive strength and region
***Depending on share of scrap inputs
Comparing low-emissions benchmarks across public procurement policies is challenging due to differences in the types of goods covered, regional variation in raw material availability, and a lack of harmonized definitions and interoperability. Much of this stems from differences among product sub-types and categories, each with distinct characteristics, production processes and emissions profiles. The figure above uses U.S. federal and California Buy Clean policies as examples to illustrate how they compare with key green procurement initiatives.
Because these initiatives and policies target various levels of decarbonization and would require technologies at different stages of development, they can complement one another. For example, less stringent emissions-intensity benchmarks with a higher bar on market penetration can incentivize the adoption of technologies and approaches that are widely available today. Meanwhile, more stringent benchmarks can send signals that there is interest in deep decarbonization technologies in the industrial sector and help increase investment and development. By addressing different stages of decarbonization, this range of initiatives allows countries and companies to make commitments that best fit their circumstances.
Harmonizing StandardsThere is a need for harmonization, or alignment, in standards across these green procurement initiatives and policies. But that doesn’t mean we need a one-size-fits-all solution. We will likely need multiple standards and protocols to cover the types of production and varied manufacturing practices across the world.
What is important is that these standards are interoperable: Consistent methodologies for measurements and data reporting, as well as clear definitions for scopes and benchmarks, are needed to ensure standards speak a common language and help avoid an undue administrative burden on manufacturers. Lack of alignment could risk sending contradictory signals to the market, resulting in an uneven playing field and undercutting decarbonization efforts.
Below are several important considerations for harmonizing green procurement standards:
- Level of accounting: Initiatives need to be mindful of how different entities (such as the private and public sectors) account for and set targets for cement, concrete and steel emissions. Approaches include product-level, project-level, facility-level or industry-level accounting (i.e., whether the emissions benchmark is specific to the product, such as concrete; specific to a project that can include many materials; specific to individual facilities; or an industry average for the material). Many green procurement initiatives and policies launched in the last few years have targeted product-level accounting. However, project-level accounting, such as whole building life cycle assessments, will also be needed to decarbonize the cement and steel sectors. This type of project-level accounting is required within IDDI’s Level 2 requirements.
- Scope of coverage: Coherence is needed in the scope (i.e., boundary of emissions accounting) and type of GHG emissions accounted for in each initiative (e.g., only CO2, or other GHGs as well). Manufacturers supplying low-emissions products to government contractors and private companies need to be able to use the same methodologies to account for and report their emissions intensities.
- Reporting mechanism: Initiatives and policies should seek alignment in their measurement methodologies, data collection and reporting mechanisms to allow an apples-to-apples comparison. This could include things like harmonized product category rules and a common methodology for environmental product declarations. The International Energy Agency published a report in April 2023 outlining the robust emissions measurement and data collection methodologies that are critical for achieving net-zero in the steel industry. Initiatives like IDDI have also published guidance for harmonizing data reporting standards. For data reliability and interoperability, initiatives will need to ensure the type of accounting used in data reporting is transparently declared in a standardized, digital format.
- Definitions: Definitions of terms like “low-emissions,” “near-zero emissions” and “net-zero emissions” need to be consistent across initiatives and policies to avoid confusion and misalignment in targets. However, consistent definitions don’t need to constrain flexibility. Standards can be made flexible by setting ranges and categories for emissions-intensity benchmarks, such as the Global Cement and Concrete Association's (GCCA) Low Carbon Rating for Cement and Concrete.
So far, the standards implemented by international green procurement initiatives have focused on North American and European practices. However, most of the world’s cement and steel production and use currently takes place in Asia, and demand for these products is set to increase rapidly in Africa. Green procurement initiatives need to bring these regions and their standards into the mix for alignment to drive meaningful decarbonization across borders. The green taxonomies for industrial products being set by India and China can provide a foundation for green public procurement policies in these countries based on national circumstances.
Green procurement initiatives should also align with the standards being set by climate-related trade policies, such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and national green taxonomies to prevent duplicate efforts and the risk of contradictory signals.
Green procurement is emerging as a powerful lever to accelerate decarbonization in cement and steel by creating early demand for low- and near-zero emissions products. However, the effectiveness of these initiatives depends on aligning definitions, data standards and methodologies across countries and sectors. With the right coordination and support, green procurement can play a central role in catalyzing a low-carbon industrial transition globally.
green-procurement-steel-wri_joe-holland-unsplash.jpg Climate United States Climate infrastructure industry low carbon development Paying for Paris Type Technical Perspective Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Ankita Gangotra Willy Carlsen Katie Lebling Kevin Kennedy John FeldmannCities Are Heating Up. Better Infrastructure Can Cool Them Down.
In a city, a grassy park might be a place to stretch out with a book, an asphalt road your route to work, a building wall a canvas for a mural. But beyond their familiar roles, each of these surfaces plays a critical and often unseen role in shaping urban heat.
Many cities are warming at twice the global rate — a problem that's only worsening with rapid urbanization. And while rising temperatures are a problem everywhere, some cities and neighborhoods (often the poorest and most vulnerable) swelter more than others.
The reason for this comes down to the urban environment. Built infrastructure like roads, buildings and sidewalks, as well as natural infrastructure like trees and water bodies, determines how heat moves through a city. In most cities, the abundance of dark, impervious surfaces, like asphalt, traps heat and drives temperatures up — contributing to the urban heat island effect.
But urban infrastructure can also be one of the most powerful tools to keep people cool, without relying on energy-hungry air conditioning. The key is focusing on "surface infrastructure" — the places where the physical city and the atmosphere interact. In fact, cities around the world are showing that seemingly simple changes to surfaces, like painting roofs white or planting trees, can have a surprisingly big impact on temperatures. It's a matter of knowing how and where to use these solutions.
White roofs, like this one on Milos Island, Greece, can keep people cool inside while lowering surrounding temperatures. Photo by photopoems/Shutterstock What Makes a City Hotter — or CoolerUrban infrastructure interacts with energy from the sun — reflecting it, absorbing it, transforming it, storing it — in ways that shape the experience of urban heat. Understanding and harnessing these mechanisms is key to designing cooler cities.
Surfaces can absorb or reflect heatWhen sunlight strikes a surface, one of two things happens: The energy is either absorbed or reflected. While energy that gets reflected back into the atmosphere doesn't cause warming, energy that is absorbed by surfaces is re-emitted as heat. Dark surfaces tend to absorb energy and elevate temperatures; white or reflective surfaces tend to have the opposite effect.
There's more than one way to measure heat. Looking at different metrics offers a more complete picture of how effective heat solutions are — from lowering the air temperature outside to changing how hot it feels.
Land surface temperature (LST) uses satellite data to measures the temperature of surfaces such as roofs, treetops and roads.
Air temperature is measured about two meters above the ground using combined data from various weather stations. This is the metric commonly seen in weather reports.
Heat index measures it feels like outside by adjusting air temperature based on humidity.
Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is similar to heat index, but considers direct sunlight and wind speed in addition to air temperature and humidity.
Universal thermal comfort index (UTCI) accounts for the combined effects of direct sunlight, reflected radiation, air temperature, wind level and humidity to accurately measure heat's impact on the human body.
Strategically increasing reflectivity (also known as "albedo") — for example, by painting rooftops or pavements light colors — can significantly decrease local temperatures. Phoenix has reduced surface temperatures by over 7 degrees C (12 degrees F) in some areas by adding reflective treatments to pavements. In the Almeria region of southern Spain, after farmers whitewashed their greenhouse roofs, local air temperature fell by about 1.6 degrees C (2.9 degrees F) compared to surrounding areas.
Cool roofs have the additional benefit of lowering indoor temperatures and reducing the need for air conditioning. In Malaysia, white roof tiles have reduced annual household energy use by 13%, bringing down power demand as well as energy costs.
Measuring land surface temperature can tell us how these interventions directly impact temperatures of surfaces, like roofs or roads. But measuring local air temperature also gives us important information about how reflective surfaces impact temperatures and people more broadly.
Shade offers instant reliefTrees, as well as structures like awnings, bus shelters and covered walkways, intercept sunlight and prevent it from being absorbed by the ground — or by people. This dramatically improves how hot it feels outside, creating a respite even on scorching days.
While increasing shade may seem obvious, the benefits can be staggering. One study found that tree shade can reduce surface temperatures by up to 25 degrees C (45 degrees F) compared to sunny, asphalt-paved areas. Cities are taking note: A community-led project in Freetown, Sierra Leone, planted more than 1 million trees over the last five years to combat rising temperatures.
Thermal comfort indices can be used to measure how shade (or the lack of it) affects people, providing guidance for where to plant trees and build shelter.
Green spaces cool the air by releasing waterA grassy park often feels noticeably cooler than a sunlit sidewalk. This is in part thanks to "evapotranspiration" — the process by which water moves from the land to the atmosphere, both through plant leaves and direct evaporation of water. Much like how sweating cools the human body, evapotranspiration draws heat from the surrounding environment and uses it to transform liquid water into vapor, lowering local air temperatures in the process.
This property, combined with the shade they provide, makes urban trees an especially powerful tool for mitigating heat. Moist surfaces like soil and open water bodies have a similar effect, known as evaporative cooling.
Cities can tap into these benefits through strategies like green roofs, green spaces and permeable pavements (which have gaps that allow water to evaporate). Medellín, Colombia, has managed to decrease its local air temperature by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) by creating a network of "green corridors" — trees and vegetation strategically planted along roads, paths and bike lanes and connecting green spaces throughout the city.
The flip side is that evaporation also increases humidity, which can compound the health risks of extreme heat. When evaluating these solutions, it's important to consider their impact on the heat index — a metric which combines air temperature and humidity — to more accurately assess how people feel outside.
'Thermal delay' shapes daytime and nighttime heatDifferent materials absorb and emit heat at different rates, which shapes urban temperature cycles. For example, asphalt warms dramatically during the day and releases that heat well into the night, keeping cities sweltering after the sun goes down.
Water bodies, on the other hand, can absorb and store significant amounts of heat without much change in temperature. This is why water stays cooler than the air when it's hot out — and why swimming is so refreshing on a summer day. During the day, air near the surface of a water body is cooled by the water and can be carried by breezes, lowering temperatures in nearby areas. At night, water releases only a small share of its stored heat very slowly, helping to avoid the high nighttime temperatures common in heavily built-up areas.
In 2005, Seoul, South Korea, demolished approximately 6 kilometers of elevated urban highway to uncover and restore the Cheonggyecheon Stream. After the project's completion, researchers compared air temperatures near the stream to those in a developed area four blocks away and found it was nearly 6 degrees C (over 10 degrees F) cooler by the stream. Not only that, but the revitalized waterway has boosted tourism, created green space for residents to enjoy and lent a massive boost to biodiversity.
While thermal delay affects temperatures day-to-day, it also moderates temperatures over longer periods — reducing the occurrence of either extreme heat or cold because of the slow, constant release of stored heat. This is a primary reason why coastal land areas have milder climates than inland areas. The cooling and moderating effects of thermal delay are best measured using air temperature.
The rehabilitated Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul, South Korea has lowered nearby temperatures while creating new green space for residents to enjoy. Photo by Daniel Gauthier/iStock Matching Solutions with Cities' Cooling GoalsEach one of these infrastructure solutions offers value on its own. But to achieve broader or more complex goals — like reducing overall energy demand or keeping pedestrians and transit riders safe during heat waves — cities will often need a multi-pronged approach. By understanding the relationships between goals, heat metrics, cooling mechanisms and infrastructure solutions, cities can make more meaningful progress against extreme heat.
For example, a city might aim to lower overall temperatures while also keeping people cool in areas with high pedestrian traffic. To accomplish this, it could blend broad and localized strategies: A citywide effort to implement cool roofs and cool pavements would increase reflectivity across large surface areas, helping to reduce heat absorption and bring down air temperatures for the whole city. In neighborhoods with high pedestrian exposure — such as commercial corridors or transit hubs — incorporating more trees or shade structures could measurably reduce people's heat exposure and health risks as they go about their days.
This kind of tiered strategy allows cities to deliver both widespread heat hazard reduction and immediate relief in the places people need it most.
Explore the grid below to see how different infrastructure solutions can be combined to meet various resilience and health goals.
Heat Goals, Explained
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Cool people outdoors: Provide significant site- or corridor-specific reduction in thermal stress, as measured by thermal comfort indices like the universal thermal comfort index.
Lower area-wide temperatures: Reduce air temperatures across a large area throughout the day.
Flatten peak temperatures: Reduce air temperatures in the hottest period of the day across a neighborhood or city.
Reduce nighttime temperatures: Reduce nighttime minimum temperatures across a neighborhood or city. Particularly relevant for providing relief from heat stress during multi-day heatwaves.
Reduce surface temperatures: Reduce the absorption of heat by surfaces in the urban environment, as measured by land surface temperature.
Cool without adding humidity: Reduce air temperatures without contributing additional humidity to the urban environment, to manage the heat burden of an area as defined by heat index. Particularly relevant in areas with high baseline humidity during the warmest seasons.
Cool without water: Reduce the temperature of an area without requiring additional water resources. Particularly relevant in arid or water stressed regions.
Reduce indoor heat: Reduce the heat absorbed by buildings to reduce indoor air temperatures and thermal stress.
Reduce energy consumption: Reduce the heat absorbed by buildings in order to decrease energy demand for cooling the buildings.
Heat is a universal challenge — but mitigating it offers cities an opportunity to respond with creativity and local insight. Each built environment is unique, and each piece of infrastructure can either exacerbate heat or help reduce it.
The solutions listed here offer a flexible toolkit. By understanding how sunlight interacts with the urban landscape and intentionally using infrastructure to influence these interactions, cities can achieve clear, measurable goals for urban heat resilience and protect their residents in a warming world.
To learn more, see WRI's Urban Heat and Passive Cooling initiative.
The graphics in this article were produced by Sara Staedicke.
city-street-shade-sails.jpg Cities Cities Buildings Urban Development Type Explainer Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Elizabeth Jane Wesley Eric Mackres Kurt Shickman Eillie Anzilotti Madeline PalmieriFarmers Restore the ‘Cradle of Mankind’ in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley
Every morning, Joyce Muthoni steps onto her farm in central Kenya with quiet determination. She moves from tree to tree — pruning, weeding, checking the soil — nurturing each seedling. Muthoni’s farm is a vibrant mix of crops and native trees, from maize and macadamia nuts to tree tomatoes, plums, loquats and over 60 avocado trees. This rich diversity has helped improve her farm’s soil health and boosted harvests. She now grows enough fruits and vegetables to both eat and sell at the local market, providing a steady income for her family.
But this is just the beginning of her day. Later, she travels deep into the nearby Kieni Forest, her hands in the earth once more. She works alongside other women in her local Community Forest Association (CFA) to care for young saplings they’ve planted, destined to become the forest’s future canopy.
Joyce Muthoni, a farmer with KENVO, at her farm in Kieni, Kenya. Photo by Prowl Limited/WRINestled in central Kenya, Kieni Forest is a lifeline for the surrounding community. For many, it offers opportunities to earn a living through ecotourism, conservation, small-scale farming, tree nurseries and sustainable timber harvesting of pine and cypress trees. Kieni is also the origin of several rivers, including the Kariminu, which supplies water to homes and farms. The forest’s many indigenous trees — including Prunus Africana, Olea Africana and others — provide cooling shade, nurture the soil and provide resilience against a changing climate.
Muthoni is more than a farmer; she is a custodian of ecological knowledge passed down through generations — learnings she now shares with her three grandchildren. She understands the rhythms of the land, the soil, the seasons, and the native species that once thrived there. She’s also part of Restore Local, a growing movement taking root to restore forests and degraded landscapes in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley.
“I saw an opportunity not just to restore our land, but also revive our livelihoods,” said Muthoni. “Today, I guide others to restore the forest — because trees bring in rain, clean air and resilience in the face of climate change.”
A Changing Landscape in Kenya’s Greater Rift ValleyStretching across Kenya like a vast green artery, the Greater Rift Valley is one of the country’s most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes. It harbors an extraordinary array of ecosystems, from lush tropical rainforests and freshwater lakes to savannah and woodlands. The area teems with wildlife — particularly the famous “Big Five” of Africa: lions, buffalo, elephants, leopards and rhinoceros. The region is often referred to as the “cradle of mankind,” a landscape vital in the study of human and species evolution.
Yet even with its rich ecological and cultural heritage, the Greater Rift Valley faces growing threats. More than 30% of Kenya’s land mass is degraded. This causes a chain reaction of challenges from reduced agricultural productivity to water insecurity that cost the country at least 3% in GDP per year.
Things are especially severe in the Greater Rift Valley. Years of deforestation, unsustainable land use and changing climate patterns have depleted the land and affected livelihoods. Forests and biodiversity have disappeared in some places. Degraded soils can’t support the abundance of plants they once did. Crop harvests grow more uncertain.
But hope is taking root through local restoration champions like Muthoni.
Restore Local Takes Hold in Kenya’s Greater Rift ValleyMany land restoration projects are top-down, led by international NGOs or government agencies. WRI’s Restore Local initiative changes the model by putting local communities at the heart of restoration. Research shows restoration projects led by locals like small farmers and business owners are 6-20 times more likely to yield benefits to communities than those carried out by larger entities.
And the benefits are many. Restoring degraded landscapes through tree-planting, sustainable farming and other practices can boost food production, grow farmers’ incomes, provide clean water and mitigate disasters like droughts, floods and rising heat.
So far, Restore Local has invested in 44 institutions made up of farmers, small business owners and community groups in the Greater Rift Valley. The project provides capacity building, targeted financing, effective monitoring and policy support to “restoration champions.” The impact is already visible: Champions have planted 3.5 million trees in the region, with a target of planting 5.9 million and restoring 4,700 hectares of degraded land in the Greater Rift Valley. Their approaches and the benefits they accrue vary, but their efforts all add up to one central goal: revitalizing the world’s cradle of civilization.
David Wamuya of Afrex Gold Limited holds up an avocado sapling at one of the company’s tree nurseries. Photo by Third Factor Production/WRI Meet the Greater Rift Valley’s ‘Restoration Champions’In Nakuru, Kenya, Wezesha Community Based Organization is working closely with local farmers to restore their degraded farms. “When we first came here, the land was dry and bare, and crops were failing,” said Redempta Mutisia of Wezesha. “But we saw potential in the land and set out to bring it back to life.”
Farmers at a Wezesha tree nursery. Photo by Prowl Limited/WRIThe Many Benefits of Restoring Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley
Restoring the Greater Rift Valley could unlock wide-reaching environmental, social and economic benefits, including:
1) Food security: Restoring land supports soil health, reduces erosion and boosts crop yields, bringing greater food stability.
2) Improved livelihoods: Restoration creates jobs in tree nurseries, agroforestry, tourism and conservation. For women and youth in the Greater Rift Valley, restoration offers dignified income and greater participation in natural resource governance.
3) Improve water quality and quantity: Reforesting water catchment areas and rehabilitating degraded watersheds can improve the flow and quality of freshwater to lakes, rivers and springs.
4) Biodiversity: Restoring land creates conditions for native plants, animals and microorganisms to thrive.
5) Economic development: Degraded lands cost Kenya billions annually. Land restoration can boost economic returns by improving agricultural productivity, supporting biodiversity and ecotourism and creating jobs. It can also reduce economic costs by mitigating floods, droughts and other disasters.
6) Climate resilience and carbon sequestration: Restoration buffers communities from climate shocks like droughts and floods while capturing carbon through trees and soil.
Wezesha trains farmers on agroforestry techniques, which integrate trees alongside crops and animal husbandry. The community group emphasizes the value of growing diverse trees and crops as opposed to monocultures, which supports biodiversity, improves soil health and boosts farm yields. To date, Wezesha has worked with farmers to grow over 500,000 tree seedlings, including avocadoes, citrus fruits, cypress trees, Olea Africana and other species.
“In a few years, the land will be beautiful, and the birds will come singing again,” said Redempta.
Afrex Gold helps local farmers plant avocado trees on their farms. Farmers plant the avocado alongside subsistence crops. Most of them eventually fully dedicate sections of their farms to growing avocado trees, which fetch a high price. Afrex Gold supplies farmers with quality seedlings, trainings and access to markets via their own packing facility in Thika. Once avocados are ready for harvest, farmers sell their produce directly to Afrex Gold at pre-agreed rates. This eliminates intermediaries such as brokers and middlemen, allowing farmers to earn a reliable and fair income.
With the financial support received from Restore Local’s TerraFund, Afrex Gold has expanded its nursery and now produces 50,000 seedlings annually, distributed to farmers across the region.
“Since Afrex Gold introduced this initiative here, soil erosion has gone down, our avocado trees are doing well, and we are also able to improve our livelihoods from selling the fruit,” said Julius Muli, one of the business’s partner farmers.
Paran Women’s Group is a collective of 64 Indigenous women’s groups based in Ololunga, Kenya. They are working to restore degraded lands in and around the Mau Forest, one of Kenya’s most vital ecological assets and the largest of the country’s five main water towers. In addition to feeding major rivers and lakes, the Mau Forest regulates river flows, mitigates floods, prevents soil erosion and supports groundwater recharge. Paran Women’s Group blends ancestral wisdom with modern restoration efforts in conserving and restoring it.
“We have been able to restore 100 hectares of degraded lands in our community, leveraging intergenerational transfer of indigenous knowledge,” said Naiyan Kiplagat, the group’s founder. Paran has also distributed 70,000 seedlings to 3,000 women and is on track to plant 150,000 trees by the end of 2025. Women — most of them from the Masai and Ogiek Indigenous communities —are able to sell fruits and other goods that the trees produce, in addition to their traditional livelihoods as pastoralists.
Members of the Paran Women Group at one of their restoration sites on the slopes of the Mau Forest. Photo by Third Factor Production/WRI Restoration WorksAs birds return to reforested hillsides, as farmers harvest stronger crops, and as water once again flows through dry riverbeds, the message is clear: When we restore nature, we restore our livelihoods and ourselves.
But no single actor can do this alone. To scale and sustain these successes, restoration champions need continued support from governments, the private sector, civil society, communities and funders. It will take a united effort to restore millions of hectares, strengthen rural economies, and secure a better future for generations to come.
The Afrex Gold team at their avocado processing plant in Thika, Kenya. Photo by Third Factor Production/WRI“Restoration is not just about recovering what was lost; it’s about reimagining what is possible,” said Wanjira Mathai, WRI’s Managing Director for Africa and Global Partnerships. “It’s about dignity, opportunity and resilience rooted in the land. The champions we work with are lighting the path forward. Our role is to ensure that path becomes a highway, wide enough for millions to walk.”
Watch the videos below or on Youtube to meet the Greater Rift Valley’s champions and see their impact firsthand.
women-planting-trees.jpg Forest and Landscape Restoration Kenya restoration agriculture Food Forests biodiversity Climate Resilience Type Vignette Exclude From Blog Feed? 0 Projects Authors Christine MboyaSTATEMENT: 8 African Nations Commit to 100% Sustainable Ocean Management
YAOUNDÉ (July 11, 2025) – Yesterday, eight African nations — Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria — adopted the Yaoundé Declaration, committing to sustainably manage 100% of ocean areas under their national jurisdiction by 2030. The commitment was made at the International Conference on the Blue Economy in the Gulf of Guinea, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
Through the regional declaration, the eight countries have pledged to develop and implement Sustainable Ocean Plans (SOPs) that will guide the sustainable use, protection, and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems. Other commitments will seek to tackle Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU) and strengthen marine security.
Following is a statement from Wanjira Mathai, Director of WRI Africa:
“The ocean is one interconnected system that spans beyond national borders, and governments must manage it that way. The Yaoundé Declaration is a powerful signal of regional leadership, showing that countries across the Gulf of Guinea are not just willing, but determined to build a sustainable, inclusive blue economy together.
“With the Our Ocean Conference coming to Kenya next year, this commitment sets the tone for African leadership on the global stage. Transboundary cooperation like this also helps shift African wisdom, solutions and priorities to the forefront, steering ambitious, homegrown answers to ocean challenges.
Following is a statement from Cynthia Barzuna, Deputy Director of WRI’s Ocean Program:
“The Gulf of Guinea is one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems — a lifeline for millions who rely on it for food and jobs. But it’s under siege from climate change, pollution, and overfishing. The Sustainable Ocean Plans these countries will develop offer a clear, actionable blueprint to manage 100% of their waters, balancing protection, prosperity and resilience.
“This commitment positions the Gulf of Guinea as a driving force in a global wave for ocean sustainability. It directly aligns with the goal of Ocean Panel, a coalition of 18 countries working towards 100% sustainable management of national waters. The Panel pioneered the concept of Sustainable Ocean Plans and, through the 100% Alliance, is urging all coastal and ocean states to follow suit.”
Editor’s note: WRI serves as Secretariat of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy — a group of 18 heads of state and government from countries committed to sustainably managing 100% of their national waters by 2030 — and coordinates the 100% Alliance, a global initiative co-led by Chile and France that encourages all other coastal and island countries to make that same commitment.