Video

How concrete shaped our cities and made the environmental crisis worse

Concrete is everywhere in our cities, in buildings, bridges, roads, dams, sidewalks, monuments, and countless other structures. But this dominance comes at a high cost, one that rarely shows up in the final bill.

To make concrete, the world consumes enormous amounts of sand, limestone, and energy. This extraction is happening so fast that nature can’t replenish what’s taken, damaging rivers, deltas, coastlines, and farmland. In many places, sand mining is already driving erosion, water scarcity, and the loss of productive soil.

At the same time, concrete remains cheap because it is subsidized and doesn’t pay for the environmental damage it causes. The result is a system that turns excess capital into buildings and infrastructure, while shifting the real costs onto society in the form of climate crisis, health problems, and the destruction of ecosystems.

This market is also highly concentrated. A small number of companies control a large share of production, influence regulations, form cartels, and in some cases are linked to conflicts and crimes tied to resource extraction.

Want to dive deeper into this topic?

Watch the full video to understand how this model works, the damage it causes, and why it’s so hard to break free from this dependency.

Disclaimer: The video is in Brazilian Portuguese, but simultaneous translation and subtitles are available in multiple languages.

UGREEN

A different kind of week is coming to UGREEN Pass

I’ll be direct: real-world sustainability is work. It requires a method, tough decisions, spreadsheets, projects that don’t pencil out, and clients who ask, “But does this pay for itself?” If you’ve been here, UGREEN Pass will probably make sense to you.

From March 9 to 13, we’re launching the UGREEN Pass Special Week. It’s a short window, with an unusually good way to join the ecosystem. This isn’t one of those “same-old promos”; it’s a specific moment for people who’ve been waiting for the right time.

But before talking about discounts, it makes more sense for you to take a look at what’s inside.

UGREEN Pass isn’t a single course. It’s a bundle of schools, courses, tools, certifications, and a community built around one simple question: how do you apply sustainability without theater and without greenwashing?

Some people join thinking it’s just more online content. They leave with a method, better references, and stronger decisions on the table. Others look at it and think, “This is deeper than I need right now.” And that’s fine. The Pass isn’t for everyone.

In factm that’s a good sign.

If you want, come in and take a look around. Explore the schools, the topics, the approach, and decode whether this matches where you are in your career right now.

👉 Click here to learn more about UGREEN Pass:

Over the next few days, I’ll explain in more detail how the Special Week will work. For now, the idea is simple: take your time. Understand what this is. Because when the window opens, it won’t stay open for long.

News

Global sustainable architecture in 2026: what actually changed

In 2026, sustainability in architecture stopped being a “best practice” and became a market requirement. The shift came from three pressures at once: costlier climate disasters, laws that cap carbon, and digital tools that speed up decision-making. The result is simple: today, projects have to prove performance, not just promise it.

Engineered timber became a real structural alternative

Building codes in parts of Europe, North America, and Oceania now allow timber buildings of up to 18 stories. The focus isn’t lightweight wood, but mass timber:

• CLT (Cross-Laminated Timber): cross-laminated panels for floors and walls.

• Glulam (Glued Laminated Timber): beams and columns for long spans.

• DLT (Dowel-Laminated Timber): the 2026 standout for a clear reason: it uses no glue or metal. The elements are locked together with hardwood dowels that expand with humidity differences, creating friction-fit connections. This simplifies CNC fabrication, makes it easier to integrate building services, and improves end-of-life circularity.

Why did this accelerate? The debate also connects timber to forest management in mega-fire regions: removing small-diameter wood that would otherwise become “fuel,” and locking carbon into buildings for decades.

Embodied carbon moved from “reports” into the law

The sector has already made big gains in operational carbon (use-phase energy). In 2026, the bottleneck is embodied carbon: emissions from extraction, manufacturing (A1–A3), transport, construction, and end of life. The shift is practical: legal caps per square meter.

• Denmark: mandatory LCA since 2023, with tighter limits in 2025–2026, setting an average cap of 7.1 kg CO₂e/m²/year, including:

  • limits by building typology,

  • a separate cap for the construction stage (A4–A5) of 1.5 kg CO₂e/m²/year,

  • strong incentives for reuse: recycled/reused materials can be counted as zero impact in the LCA.

• European Union (EPBD): national transposition by May 2026, with a roadmap that brings Whole-Life Carbon (WLC) into permitting, linking carbon directly to real-estate risk (financing and insurance).

• Australia: a national strategy for upfront carbon (A1–A5), with standardization via NABERS and growing pressure for EPDs on structural materials.

Rammed earth is back, but with a rule: no cement

The 2026 trend is unstabilized rammed earth. The reason is technical: adding cement turns earth into a composite that’s hard to reintegrate into the environment and significantly increases carbon. When projects use soil from the site itself, transport drops, and so do emissions. Rammed earth also works as thermal mass, reducing indoor heat peaks and dependence on air conditioning in extreme climates.

AI + BIM became tools for material reduction

The text frames AI in BIM as a decision engine, not a “render machine”:

• generating and testing building massing for daylight, shading, and ventilation,

• optimizing structures to remove excess material and cut 20–40% of material use in some scenarios,

• operating buildings with digital twins and sensors to reduce energy use without sacrificing comfort.

But there’s a conflict: AI consumes energy and water in data centers. The 2026 response is to demand “sustainable AI”: smaller, more specialized models with lower computational cost.

“Green” now has to be disaster-resilient

The agendas have merged. If a building doesn’t survive floods, fire, or extreme winds, its embodied carbon is a total loss, and rebuilding simply repeats the emissions. That’s why resilience criteria are now part of the “green” package, with examples such as:

• rules for wildland–urban interface (WUI) areas and Zone Zero (a defensible space around homes to reduce ignition risk),

• coastal infrastructure using Nature-Based Solutions (NbS), such as parks and berms that protect and also work day to day (e.g., New York’s Big U).

The 2026 picture

Sustainable architecture has become a mandatory combination of low-carbon materials (timber/earth), legally enforced carbon accounting (LCA/WLC), simulation-driven design (AI + BIM), and disaster resilience. The sector is moving away from “voluntary labels” and into the logic of permitting, insurance, and financing.