What it is
Buildings account for a large share of global energy use and emissions, split between operational emissions (the energy used to heat, cool, and power a building day to day) and embodied carbon (the emissions released in manufacturing and transporting the materials used to construct it — steel, cement, glass).
Electrification
The most significant near-term shift in this space is electrification: replacing fossil-fuel heating (gas furnaces, oil heat) with heat pumps, which move heat rather than generate it and can be several times more efficient.
Building codes as the regulatory lever
Building codes and energy efficiency standards — insulation requirements, appliance efficiency mandates — are the regulatory lever most often used to push this shift, similar in spirit to the disclosure rules covered in Climate Policy & Economics but aimed at construction and retrofits rather than corporate reporting.
Why it matters
This sector overlaps heavily with Energy / Grid, since electrifying heating adds significant new electricity demand, and with Climate SaaS-adjacent software that helps building owners track and reduce energy use. It’s also one of the more retrofit-heavy sectors — a large share of the emissions-reduction opportunity is in existing buildings, not just new construction.