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Buildings’ construction and operation are major contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the substantial reduction of GHG emissions across their full life cycle is required to enable meeting international climate targets. For effective climate change mitigation - as recent studies have shown - a special focus has to be put on lowering embodied GHG emissions, i.e., emissions related to construction production manufacturing and construction processes, maintenance and replacement as well as end-of-life processing. As the importance of reducing embodied GHG emissions rises, so does the need for understanding both the baseline and pathways for reduction across the full life cycle of buildings. In this paper, we offer insights into the data-driven analysis of embodied GHG emissions across the whole life cycle of buildings from recent studies. Our investigation builds on the data collection, processing and harmonisation of around 1.000 building LCA case studies. We offer an integrated perspective on GHG emissions across the life cycle of buildings, considering historical trends, current baselines and indicative reduction pathways for embodied GHG emissions in different countries across Europe. This serves to inform our current ‘decade of action’ and the transformation to a regenerative built environment by 2050.

Planet Earth is imbalanced due to human comsumption, growth in population and exponential reaction chains in Nature. New theories of sustainable development are challenging status quo. Examples of these theories are 1) Circular Economy, 2) Absolute Sustainability and 3) Doughnut Economy. These models for sustainable development challenge the built environment in Denmark where governance currently focuses on realising relative reductions in impact. Where each building permit is given based on compliance with a theoretical energy frame which defines the maximum annual permitted energy consumption per m2. There is however no limit to the number of m2 built each year. This essentially means that more and more m2 are built each year and the building industry is nowhere near realising the necessary reductions in environmental impact. Furthermore, the energy frame is a theoretical framework that neglects to consider human behaviour and comfort of building users. If compliance with the Paris agreement is to be within reach there is thus an urgent need to redesign governance of the built environment. This paper presents a short review of the theories behind Circular Economy, Absolute Sustainability and Doughnut Economy, as well as, a review of how building permits are currently given in Denmark. Based on these reviews an idea for how to redesign public governance of the built environment is presented. The idea focuses on the practicalities of 1) how to move from relative to absolute metrics and 2) how to redesign the way the building permits are given. The paper concludes with a discussion of how this affects processes and stakeholders involved in the built environment and conditions that ensure practical implementation of the idea.