This report is the output of a case study run by the SustainTrans team within the project Energy Cooperation Blekinge, aimed to clarify the major climate and sustainability challenges for buildings and building systems and how to deal with them from a life-cycle perspective. The method of this study was split into first developing an analytical frame with consistent definitions for climatepositive and sustainable construction and housing sectors and then using the analytical frame to clarify the challenge and plan for solutions for Blekinge. The analysis gave the following results:

• Step a. An overarching goal that require future systems, as a minimum, to not violate the sustainability principles of the FSSD and to be climate-neutral by 2030.

• Step b. A list of current stakeholder violations of the sustainability principles of the FSSD with the main impacts being greenhouse gas emission from the raw materials phase and from the energy purchased during the building use phase of the building value-chain life-cycle.

• Step c. A brief review of projects and organizations with potential solutions for the climate and sustainability challenges covered efforts from the World and Swedish Green Building Councils, Fossil Free Sweden, LFM30, Project Drawdown, the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, IVL and partner organizations within Energy Cooperation Blekinge.

• Step d. A decarbonization strategy package that takes its starting point in smarter urban design, direct construction projects towards climate-neutral materials, recycling, efficiency and renewable energy supply, and, at a broader societal level, emphasizes the need for climate compensation and improved sustainability competence among stakeholders.

The study’s results seem credible since they generally build on established research and internationally accepted definitions and point in the same direction as some comparable studies. Three major concluding points emerged when wider societal benefits of this study were considered: 

• The construction and housing sectors will have key roles in the societal climate and sustainability transitions and they would benefit from dealing with them proactively.

• The adapted analytical frame suggested in this study is generic and could likely help to clarify and speed up sustainability transition efforts also more widely both in Sweden and beyond. One such area is a parallel effort that develops generic approaches for how the sustainability transition of societal sectors could be done in a way that clarifies interdependencies and avoids major sub optimizations. A direct spin-off will be the Roadmapper project that aims to strengthen transport sector transition modeling with Blekinge as a first case study. Another related effort is the planned Drawdown Europe End User Portal (DEEP) project that aims to build support tools to adapt large scale global climate solutions to national and regional levels.

• The new clarified definitions of sustainability-positive buildings and building systems imply that it would desirable to build a similar strategic transition process with budgets also for other sectors and for other key aspects of sustainability like metals, use of productive surfaces, etc. The influential work done on planetary boundaries could here be a good starting point.