News
Saint-Gobain’s Sustainable Construction Observatory published the fourth edition of its annual Barometer at the end of April 2026. The study, conducted with Occurrence-IFOP, surveyed 4,800 construction-sector professionals and 30,000 citizens across 30 countries - the broadest sample to date.
The headline finding is not a lack of awareness. It is a structural gap between what the industry says it values and what it actually measures, documents, and delivers.
67%
of professionals say they understand exactly what sustainable construction means
32%
routinely assess the carbon footprint of their projects
47%
believe sustainable construction generates more value than conventional - only 34% of elected officials agree
55% of professionals say they intend to execute sustainable projects. 30% already do. The gap between those two numbers has not closed in four years of tracking.
The financial pressure angle
The Barometer captures a market at an inflection point. Investors, insurers, and institutional buyers are embedding sustainability criteria into risk frameworks and procurement requirements. Yet fewer than one in three professionals systematically measure carbon on their projects - which means most firms cannot produce the documentation these buyers now require. The barrier is no longer willingness. It is the absence of measurement infrastructure.
What this means
The Barometer identifies the central obstacle: difficulty making sustainable performance visible, measurable, and integrated into cost and timeline decisions. This is not a regional problem. The gap between stated intent and systematic practice appears consistently across Europe, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas.
For project teams
Without documented environmental performance, projects lose specification in developments that require certification or green financing.
For manufacturers
Without verified product data, materials get excluded from supply chains that now require technical evidence - EPDs, LCAs, emissions comparisons.
For developers
Without emissions measurement, there is no response to the growing number of investors and lenders who assess sustainability as part of project risk.
For policymakers
Public procurement still flags sustainability as a key criterion - but its weight in decision-making has declined since the previous edition, pointing to a gap between policy intent and evaluation frameworks.
The construction sector has spent years building awareness of sustainability. The next phase requires building the infrastructure to prove it - measurement tools, technical training, and documentation standards that turn stated priorities into verifiable results.
The market is no longer asking whether sustainable construction matters. It is asking which firms can demonstrate that it does - with data, not declarations.
UGREEN Pass
Every tool you need to work in sustainable construction inside the UGREEN Pass
Most professionals in sustainable construction piece together their education as they go - one course here, one certification there, no clear path connecting them.
The UGREEN Pass changes that!
Eight schools covering the full scope of the field: sustainable architecture, interiors, biophilic design, ESG, water efficiency, sustainable materials, green certifications - including LEED Green Associate - and AI for architecture. Each with video modules, simulation tools, and a certificate upon completion.
The learning path above shows the structure: start with the UGREEN Certification, select your area of focus, and follow a curriculum that goes from foundational knowledge to applied implementation.
Technical Content
The façade that responds
There is a problem that goes largely unnoticed in a significant share of buildings designed over the past few decades.
Their façades were drawn for a specific moment: a fixed sun angle, a reference temperature - conditions that exist for only a few weeks of the year and spend the remaining months as the primary cause of internal discomfort, excess energy consumption, and the cycle of HVAC adjustments needed to compensate for what the envelope did not resolve.
It is easy to assume the issue lies in the glazing specification, the shading device, or the material chosen. It does not. The real culprit is the static façade.
What changes when the façade begins to respond
Kinetic façades are envelope systems that alter their geometry in response to external conditions: solar radiation, temperature, wind.
Le Corbusier developed the first fixed brise-soleils from 1929 onwards, with built applications appearing from 1935. What has since evolved is the scale, precision, and viability of systems that do this automatically and continuously.
The mechanism operates in three steps: (i) sensors monitor external conditions continuously; (ii) a control system processes that data and determines the optimal panel configuration; (iii) actuators execute the physical movement of the panels
The result is an envelope that operates differently at 8 am and 3 pm, in summer and winter, on a northeast-facing wall and a west-facing wall. Reductions of up to 50% in solar heat gain, with a proportional decrease in cooling load, without requiring manual intervention - these are the direct performance outcomes of this application.
There is also a passive version of this principle, with no motors and no algorithms. The domestic terminal car park at Brisbane Airport, designed by artist Ned Kahn in collaboration with Hassell Architecture and UAP, uses approximately 117,000 suspended aluminium panels that move freely with the wind, without sensors or motors of any kind. The façade moves because the wind moves, providing shading and cross-ventilation as a byproduct of a force that was already there.
One of the main obstacles to adopting these technologies is their dependence on electrical and mechanical systems that require maintenance, fail over time, and carry their own embodied carbon from manufacturing.
The Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, completed in 1987 and designed by Jean Nouvel in collaboration with Architecture-Studio, required a complete renovation of its motorized diaphragm system 30 years after opening. The motors had been failing progressively, and the sophistication of the original design had generated an operational cost not accounted for in the project brief.
Envelope decisions in practice
Discussion of kinetic façades tends to remain within the register of international landmark projects: Abu Dhabi, Paris, Brisbane. Buildings that exist within specific budget, regulatory, and climate contexts that do not transfer directly to most project decisions.
But the performance question behind them applies to any envelope decision: how does a façade perform over time, under variable conditions, without relying on mechanical cooling to compensate for what the design did not resolve?
Answering that question does not require an automated system. It requires treating the façade as a performance system, with the same analytical rigour applied to a structural engineering report.
In projects reviewed by UGREEN, the combination of solar orientation, correctly sized external shading, and strategic opening placement consistently separates buildings that maintain thermal and visual comfort for most of the year using passive strategies from those that depend on full-time mechanical cooling.
These are not new concepts. They are design fundamentals that project workflows frequently treat with less rigour than a structural specification or a mechanical systems report.
What the market is beginning to require
Fully automated kinetic façade systems still carry implementation and maintenance costs that limit their adoption outside flagship commercial and institutional projects. But the performance logic that produced them is reaching the market through other channels: energy performance standards, certification requirements, and financing criteria that treat thermal efficiency as a condition of access, not an optional attribute.
A project that delivers higher-than-projected energy consumption, or that depends on mechanical cooling to compensate for an undersized envelope, will answer for that in operational costs, lease valuations, and occupant satisfaction across the building’s lifespan.
The static façade, designed for an average condition that rarely exists, will continue to be specified. But it will become progressively harder to justify when measurable alternatives exist and when performance data is becoming the evidence the market is beginning to require.
Video of the week
Your office is draining your team’s productivity
Most people have worked in an office where half the room is freezing and the other half is sweltering. The afternoon slump hits at 2 PM for no clear reason, and focus disappears before lunch even starts.
The most common explanations are lack of motivation, stress, or poor management. But that diagnosis is often wrong.
The human body burns a significant amount of energy just to stay stable in an environment that works against it. Unregulated temperature, air loaded with accumulated CO₂, fixed artificial lighting, and noise with no acoustic barrier: each of these factors pulls energy away from the work itself.
The result shows up as fatigue, mistakes, rework, and meetings that go nowhere.
Want to learn more about this topic?
Watch the full video on YouTube and see how the physical office environment directly affects team productivity and what a single design decision can change.
Disclaimer: The video is in Brazilian Portuguese, but simultaneous translation and subtitles are available in multiple languages.
