On the Role of Construction in Achieving the SDGs

Construction and real estate have been central to the debates on sustainable development. Where the dominant definition of sustainability in the built environment focuses on the environmental dimension, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer new opportunities for the building sector to expand its focus.  Green building rating systems, such as LEED, BREEAM and DGNB, fail to analyze the intersection between buildings and the SDGs.  This paper identifies SDG targets that depend on construction and real estate activities and reveals that 17% of the SDG targets are directly dependent and 27% are indirectly dependent on construction and real estate activities.