The built environment is responsible for just under 40% of global energy-related emissions. In 2022, operating buildings produced nearly 10 billion tonnes of carbon, and construction a further 2.5 billion. Retrofitting is a double mission: we must upgrade existing buildings to use less energy, and we must make adaptive reuse (rather than demolition) the default for meeting new demand, to remain within hard limits on resource consumption.
But decarbonization is not the only challenge facing 21st-century cities – so why would we focus on carbon in isolation? This global retrofitting movement is an opportunity to reflect on how and where we want to live, and to reshape our urban reality to match. It’s a chance to transform cities into healthier, happier, more resilient places, to adapt them to flourish as populations grow and industries change, and to overturn entrenched inequities that stifle economic and human potential.
WSP’s Retrofitting+ series is about joining the dots, taking a wider view of sustainability, and optimizing for more than one thing at a time. As we retrofit to net zero, what opportunities could this present to address biodiversity collapse, the housing crisis, or social determinants of health? How could we rejuvenate our cities, without blowing our carbon budget, by rethinking the way we plan, design and build? Here we present just a handful of perspectives from WSP’s global teams on how to shape the buildings we have into the cities we want.