CIOB President, Professor Mike Kagioglou. Image: CIOB

Having attended last year鈥檚 COP summit in Dubai, I arrived in Baku in Azerbaijan for COP29 looking forward to seeing and hearing how the built environment would be positioned both in its role as a contributor and a solution to climate change.

COP events can be hugely overwhelming as, at any given time, there will be dozens of panel discussions, round tables, conferences and other events taking place, while there鈥檚 also hundreds of pavilions 鈥� similar to those at a trade show 鈥� that delegates can visit at any time.

I always put together a plan of the sessions I want to join and the pavilions to visit or it鈥檚 easy to waste time wandering. However, the plan has to be flexible as, in my experience, COP schedules often change at the last minute.

I visited several sessions and pavilions with connections to construction and the wider built environment, and my key takeaways were predominantly positive ones around innovation and how our sector can set examples for others.

However, I also gained many powerful insights on the challenges smaller nations face in tackling climate change and the solutions they are developing, often with comparatively little in the way of funding and physical resources.

COP 29 took place in 2025 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Image: Adobe Stock

One of the most striking examples I heard that illustrates the impact of climate change on often underrepresented nations came from a speaker at the Singapore Pavillion, who spoke with great emotion about how flooding incidents are on the rise on the small Pacific Island on which she lives.

She recounted the flooding of the island鈥檚 cemetery and how she and others were literally picking up the bones of their ancestors from the floodwater as it flowed to the nearby beach and out to sea.

This image is one that will stay with me for a long time and puts into perspective how the changing climate isn鈥檛 only an environmental issue but very much a human one too. It鈥檚 true that those most impacted are often those least equipped to adapt.

Specifically, when it comes to the built environment sector and its place in tackling climate change, I saw and heard many encouraging things but it鈥檚 abundantly clear we need to be more aspirational and bring about a culture where basic compliance to stay on the right side of the law and doing the bare minimum is not the norm.

Environmental regulation and legislation required

As is widely recognised, our sector generally only achieves meaningful change at scale and pace when forced to do so through regulation and legislation. It鈥檚 therefore on governments and regulators, as well as the industry itself, to be more ambitious with the frameworks and standards they develop to push the industry to go further and faster.

Construction is a major producer of global carbon emissions. Image: Adobe Stock

We need to develop national programmes that demonstrate the very best of what we do and inspire others to follow suit. We also need to demand that organisations meet aspiration standards as part of their eligibility to bid for future work.

Standing still or making small incremental improvements will only take us backwards considering the increasing pace of negative change taking place.

I was glad to see so many sessions covering the built environment and infrastructure and its impact on the environment, but questions remain about how much progress will be made before COP30 comes around next year.

Someone even described the sector as a 鈥渟leeping giant鈥� in relation to how it must be part of the solution when it comes to addressing climate change and I strongly agree. We consume more around 40% of all industrialised used water and contribute to more than 25% of carbon emissions. The potential is there but it鈥檚 a long way from being realised 鈥� we must wake that giant up.

I left COP29 with a sense of restrained optimism. On one hand, I felt inspired by some of the innovation I鈥檇 seen on display along with how many organisations are adapting to the challenges posed by climate change, but on the other, pessimistic about the slow rate of change and the lack of anything happening at scale.

As in previous years, the need and desire to change is evident but it鈥檚 hard to see where the transformation comes from and who takes the lead.