Fireside chat between Benoit Bazin and Anacláudia Rossbach
📅 Feb 03, 2025Saint-Gobain13 MIN213 VIEWS11 SEGMENTS · 3 SPEAKERS
In January 2025 Saint-Gobain's Sustainable Construction Observatory hosted a Sustainable Construction Talk in Davos: “Sustainability under construction: The role of the built environment in achieving our planet’s sustainability goals”. The session kicked off with a fireside chat between Benoit Bazin, Chairman and CEO, Saint-Gobain and Anacláudia Rossbach, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN-Habitat.
Find the full Takeaways from the Sustainable Construction Talk here: https://www.saint-gobain.com/sites/sa...
Questions asked in this interview
3
0:17Because we've also worked out during the talks that there was not necessarily a consensus globally over what sustainable construction actually means, and how can it enable companies and economies to achieve their climate targets?
11:49But before we wrap up this conversation, I had a last question for you, Benoit Bazin: what's your call to action to leaders from the sector and beyond tonight, and maybe to our audience?
Welcome to both of you. It's a pleasure to have you with us tonight. I'm going to start with a question for Benoit. I mentioned in my introduction that construction generates 37% of global CO2 emissions—that's a lot, staggering in fact. And yet the built environment is of course essential to people's lives. So what does sustainable construction mean? Because we've also worked out during the talks that there was not necessarily a consensus globally over what sustainable construction actually means, and how can it enable companies and economies to achieve their climate targets?
Well, as you said, it has of course first a big impact on the planet—the CO2 emissions, also the natural resources, because within the construction sector we take 50% in volumes of the natural resources, we produce 40% of the solid waste. So that's for the planet, without talking about water. Second, beyond the planet, it brings a lot to the people. I think we have to be very much aware that everywhere around the world there's a housing crisis which does have a huge impact on societies. And sustainable construction can bring a lot in terms of health, in terms of well-being, be it at home or education buildings, hospitals. So a big benefit for the people—that's the second point. The third I would mention, which unfortunately is rising, is extreme weather. So resilience—sustainable construction with the right urban planning should bring more resilience and climate adaptation going forward. So those are the main benefits I would say for sustainable construction. Of course it's not one-size-fits-all. We don't build in Switzerland like in Brazil, like in Canada or in Vietnam. We don't have the same needs, we don't have the same climate, so we have to be local by nature. I think it's very important for policymakers, for private sector, to be local—to act locally in terms of circular economy, in terms of materials, in terms of skills, in terms of education, in terms of advocacy. So be local, but those would be the touch points I would mention on sustainable construction.
Thank you very much. Anna Claudia, most governments are submitting their NDCs now or very soon—we'll do anyway. So what are the most important ways in which governments can incorporate sustainable construction into climate action?
Excellent point and very timely, because right now they have to submit their NDCs. One thing we observed is that most of the NDCs do include aspects of building and construction, but what they don't include is the perspective of cities. Only 27% of the NDCs consider the aspects of cities, and only 20 NDCs really incorporate concrete roadmaps and investments around cities. And this is a contradiction because cities are responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. We have more than half of the population today living in cities; in 2050 we're going to have 70% of the population living in cities. And right now cities—we are growing more in territory than in population, so we have to fix something. One critical aspect for me is land and how we plan with cities, how we think about issues like densification, how we diversify—thinking about the housing crisis and the huge housing needs we have. Basically one city of New York per month for the next 37 years. That's a lot. We're talking about almost three billion people living in inadequate situations, one billion people living in slums, 300 million homelessness, 100-plus million affected by conflicts, wars, millions by disasters. So we're going to have to reconstruct, we have to rebuild, and the needs are huge. So we need to diversify and see how we can maximize the territory we have, the built environment, and also consider land as a critical aspect of sustainability.
Thank you very much. I think we better understand what's at stake here really and the scope of the problem. But let's move forward of course and talk about what's coming up next. So as we start a new year, Benoit, I was wondering if you could maybe tell us what your outlook is for sustainable construction, and maybe ask you to share some of the most innovative sustainable practices, materials, or technologies now emerging in the construction sector, and maybe what the headwinds or tailwinds, the challenges for them to scale up could be in the near future.
6 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Bazin, B. (2025, February 3). Fireside chat between Benoit Bazin and Anacláudia Rossbach [Interview transcript]. Saint-Gobain. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1027002/
MLA
Benoit Bazin. "Fireside chat between Benoit Bazin and Anacláudia Rossbach." Saint-Gobain, 3 Feb. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1027002/.
BibTeX
@misc{bazin2025_1027002,
author = {Benoit Bazin},
title = {Fireside chat between Benoit Bazin and Anacláudia Rossbach},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Saint-Gobain. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {feb},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1027002/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
