Advisory Board for Climate Protection and Sustainable Development invites you to a lecture

The Advisory Board for Climate Protection and Sustainable Development invites you to the lecture "From Climate Destruction to Climate Healing? Roadmap for a systemic change in the construction sector". This will be held on 07.02.2024 from 18:00 in the plenary hall of the Historic Town Hall (Markt 1, 07743 Jena) as part of the meeting of the Advisory Board by Prof. Dr. Philipp Misselwitz from "Bauhaus der Erde". There will be time for a short discussion afterwards.

About the lecture

The construction and operation of buildings is the most important source of man-made environmental pollution, accounting for 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions. By 2050, an additional 2.5 billion people will be living in cities. The unprecedented scale and pace of this urban growth will create a huge demand for housing and urban infrastructure, doubling both the global building stock and land area in the coming decades. If we continue to build with the policies, practices and technologies that prevail globally today, the environmental and social impacts will be devastating. We therefore urgently need to develop new building practices and systematically rethink our cities to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis and ensure decent living conditions for all species. Minimizing damage in the sense of decarbonizing the construction sector will not be enough. A global building transition must be based on a material transition that focuses on restoring our natural habitats and ecosystems for people and nature. This could lead to a regenerative built environment that stores more carbon than it emits.

About the person

Philipp Misselwitz is an architect and urban researcher. He has been head of the Urban Design and International Urban Studies (Habitat Unit) at the Technical University of Berlin since 2013. His research focuses on the effects of planetary, socio-ecological crises on architecture, urban development and urban-rural dynamics. Since 2017 he is Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg. In 2021, he became Managing Director of Bauhaus der Erde and is dedicated to developing new systemic approaches for an inclusive, climate- and cycle-friendly built environment.