Facade & ESG

ESG, which stands for environment, social, and governance, is a financial approach linking sustainability goals and implementation in businesses. ESG recognizes that a company’s financial performance depends on the stakeholders with whom it works and serves, the society it operates in, and the natural resources it depends on (ISSB, 2023a,b). Based on the same concept of “materiality” as in financial disclosure, a subject is considered “material” if it has an impact or financial implication. Omission or misinformation could influence investors’ decisions, therefore requiring transparency and disclosure in its reporting (UNEP, 2004; ISSB, 2023a,b). Closely related but not the same as sustainability, ESG applies frameworks and metrics to evaluate companies to enable investors and stakeholders to mitigate risks and identify growth opportunities (HSBC, 2023; Serafeim, 2023).

ESG issues first emerged in the United Nations Global Compact’s (2004) report Who Cares Win, which recommended financial institutes integrate environmental, social and governance issues in analysis and asset management. Over the last two decades, the number of ESG reporting standards and frameworks has proliferated to over 600 globally, most of which are voluntary and interpret sustainability differently (EY, 2021). In 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) inaugurated the first two global sustainability disclosure baselines to systematize the disparaging ESG standards, frameworks, and initiatives across industries and geographies. Publicly listed companies in the U.S. are required by law to disclose sustainability performance. The first standard, IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information, lays out the general disclosure content and took effect in January 2024. The second standard, IFRS S2 Climate Related Disclosures, requires more detailed reporting on climate-related risks and opportunities. will take effect in 2026. In addition to baseline disclosure that all reporting entities must fulfill, IFRS S2 also specifies industry-based requirements (ISSB, 2023a,b; IFC, 2024). In addition to the IFRS standards, the U.S. Stock Exchange Climate Proposal has issued similar disclosure thresholds and mandates scope 1 and 2 reporting on energy-related emissions (ISSB, 2023c).

As ESG disclosure shifts from voluntary to mandatory, the need to decarbonize the built environment has grown ever more urgent. The built environment constitutes more than one-third of global carbon emissions, including 27 percent from energy use and 11 percent from construction materials (IPCC, 2021). According to IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (Cabeza et al., 2022) and the United Nations Environment Programme (2022), the building sector is not on track to achieve the goal of decarbonization by 2050. In most regions, the improvement in building efficiency has been offset by the increased floor area. Globally, emissions of the building sector have risen from 9.1 GtCO2 in 2015, the year of the Paris Agreement, to 9.8 GtCO2 in 2021 (IEA, 2023). At the UN Climate Change Conference COP28, 27 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and China, signed on to the Building Alliance convened by the UNEP. Covering 70 percent of the world’s built floor area worldwide, these signatory countries agreed to make near-zero energy buildings the norm and reduce the embodied carbon of constructions by 40 percent by 2030.

Considering that the facade is a critical building system that affects the social and environmental impacts of a building, this paper sets out to explore the role of facade in the context of ESG disclosure.

METHODOLOGY

Table 2. Energy Intensity by Building Types in Case Study Portfolio

Table 3. Reference Standards

ANALYSIS

This section discusses the analysis based on the above methodology. For each attribute, ESG reporting requirements are discussed, then followed by case analysis and implications.

Reporting Scope

The objective of the first attribute is to identify the scope of ESG disclosure that is applicable to facades. The IFRS taxonomy categorize the reporting entity by industry. IFRS S1 requires the entity to disclose sustainability-related information about its risks and opportunities under four topics: governance, strategy, risk management, as well as metrics and targets. The metrics refer to measurements of the risks and opportunities, and the progress towards any regulatory or voluntary targets. The intended audience of sustainability disclosures are the primary users of general financial reports for the decisions on resource allocation (ISSB 2022a).

IFRS S2 comprises baseline and industry-specific disclosure requirements. The standard also requires reporting of governance but is more focused on climate-related physical and transitional risks. The metrics specifically concern the greenhouse gas emissions, including indirect emissions, in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (WRCSD, 2015; ISSB 2022b).

Applying the taxonomy to our case study, the architect’s ESG reporting, an architectural firm in charge of facade design would be classified as the engineering and construction services industry in the infrastructure sector. The developer clients they serve are in the real estate services industry. For the industry-specific reporting, there are two topics under the metric “environmental impacts of buildings and infrastructure”. The entity is required to disclose the number of projects certified or seeking certification of third-party, multi-attribute standards such as LEED. The other metric concerns the energy and water impact during the building projects’ operational phase (ISSB, 2022b). For instance, in a facade project, the resultant energy use will be the architect’s scope 3 downstream indirect emission. Although design professionals often undertake building projects individually, ESG reporting will be portfolio-based. As such, a company’s sustainability strategies and measurements, including those related to the facade, need to be applied across projects.

Table 4. IFRS S2 industry specific climate disclosure topics by sector

Energy Impact

In the second attribute, we explored the ESG implications of facade-associated energy use. IFRS S2 (ISSB, 2023b) sets out the requirements that the reporting entity “shall consider its entire value chain (upstream and downstream) and shall consider all 15 categories of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.” In our case study, operational energy resulting from the architect’s facade design would be categorized as downstream indirect emission, scope 3 category 11, use of sold goods and services. For the developer owner, the downstream emissions from tenant spaces will be in scope 3 category 13, leased assets (WRCSD, 2013).

A highrise office building was selected from the case portfolio for this analysis. The project is a 60-story highrise office building with 9,132 sq.m. facade area. The project is located in Guangdong, China, a cooling load-dominated region in ASHRAE Climate Zone 2A (ASHRAE, 2021). Table 5 presents the building and facade parameters to be used in the energy analysis. To understand the facade-associated energy and emissions, we compared a baseline case and an ESG case. Though identical in appearance, the latter is specified with low-e IGU, thermal frame, and integrated daylighting control.

Energy modeling was conducted in eQuest v3.65 (Hirsch, 2018) to compare the baseline case and ESG case. The quantitative results of total energy use, energy use intensity, and facade-associated energy use are summarized in table 6. The annual energy uses are 14,350,000 kWh/yr for the baseline case and 11,490,000 kWh/yr for the ESG case. We next quantified the impact of energy use in OpenLCA v2.2 based on regional electricity grid mix (Table 7; IEA, 2021). The ReCiPe Midpoint was used as the impact assessment method (Goedkoop, et al, 2009). Table 8 presents the results by impact categories.

The climate-related metrics in IFRS S2 (ISSB, 2023b) require not only the quantity of energy use and carbon emissions, but also disclosure of the measurements and approach that underlies the reporting. Although ESG reporting is portfolio-based, the building analysis forms the basis of the impact quantification. To demonstrate the value of facade impact on energy use and greenhouse gas reductions, it is imperative to explicitly track the facade efficiency measures in the context of whole building energy use. The LCA results also demonstrate the wide range of impacts from energy use. Grid mix of predominantly fossil fuel sources not only leads to higher greenhouse gas intensity, but also exerts greater impact on air emissions and human health. Building energy efficiency, including saving from improved facade performance, also means savings in other impact categories.

Table 5. Case Building Parameters

Table 6. Electricity Grid Mix

Table 7. Operational Energy Use

Table 8. Life Cycle Impact Assessment of Energy Use

Material Impact

The third attribute concerns the material impact of facades. Following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (WRCSD, 2013, 2015), building material emissions used in constructions are categorized as the architect’s indirect emissions in scope 3 category 10, processing of sold product. For the developer owner, the construction materials are also indirect emissions, but under scope 3 category 1, purchased goods and services.

The facade parameters shown in table 5 were again used in this attribute analysis for an embodied carbon comparison between the baseline case and ESG case. We use one facade panel as the LCA functional unit. Table 9 presents the material inventory of the two cases and the carbon intensity by component. Impact quantifications were conducted in OpenLCA v2.2 using construction entries from the EcoInvent v3.4 database.\*1

Embodied carbon of the baseline approach is estimated at 248.87 kg CO2 for a panel, compared to 450.19 kg CO2, or 45% higher, for the ESG case. The analysis of the last attribute, energy impact, revealed that the efficiency measures of low-e coating, IGU, thermal frame, and daylighting control are effective for reducing operational emissions. Based on the energy use estimates, the payback period for the ESG case is only 5 months, which justifies the higher embodied carbon. From a whole life cycle perspective, the ESG case would be recommended. Table 10 presents the conversion of material emissions into different measurement units, which could be aggregated into the portfolio-level ESG reporting. The impact quantifications are valuable for determining the payback period, thus allowing informed decisions on the investment in both environmental and economic terms of the facade.

Table 9. LCA of Facade Materials

Table 10. Embodied Carbon of Facade Panel

Impact Categories

For the fourth attribute, we intend to understand the impact categories by evaluating a key material, glass, in the value chain of facade. IFRS S2 (2023) refers to “value chain” as the system of “interactions, resources, and relationships an entity uses and depends on to create its products or services.”

Continuing on the asset study in the last attribute, the highrise building has a window-to-wall ratio of 60%. Glazing consists of 106.5 sq.m. out of 152.2 sq.m. facade area of a typical floor. An LCA is conducted to compare the impact of clear glass and low-e glass based on a 1 sq.m. pane at 12mm thickness. Table 11 displays the LCA results. In our case study of the architectural firm as the reporting entity, the facade glazing will be counted as downstream emission in Scope 3, category 10, processing of sold products (IFRS, 2023b)

The eighteen impact categories include climate change, fossil fuel depletion, particulate matters, human toxicity - cancer, human toxicity - non-cancer, mineral depletion, land use, ozone depletion, ozone formation, radiation, terrestrial acidification, water depletion, freshwater ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and marine eutrophication. The quantitative LCA results indicate that in all impact categories, low-e glass would result in higher impact than clear glass. Nonetheless, with data available on both energy impact and material impact, it is possible to determine when the energy saving from the low-e glass could break even with the higher material impact.

The LCA results also demonstrate that building materials, glazing included, exert a broad range of impacts on ecosystems, planetary resources, and human health. Although these impacts are not yet required in the IFRS S1/S2 reporting topics, ISSB (2024) has announced the development of sustainability disclosure standards about risks and opportunities associated with biodiversity, ecosystems, and human capital. In addition, a voluntary initiative already exists. Taskforce on Nature Financial Disclosure, a pilot program led by UNEP Financial Institute (2023, 2024), uses geospatial biodiversity datasets to evaluate impacts, risks, opportunities and dependencies associated with nature. The evolving ESG standards will more accurately reflect the nature capital that often is not accounted for in building projects (ISSB, 2024).

Table 11. Life Cycle Assessment of IGU

Compliance

For the last attribute, compliance, we explored the characteristics of voluntary and mandatory compliance. IFRS requires that the reporting entity “shall consider the time horizons over which the effects of climate-related risks and opportunities could reasonably be expected to occur.” (ISSB, 2023b)

In our case study, the projects vary in the time gap of two to ten years between the design phase and to construction phase. Although the design phase of these projects occurred at a time before there were any sustainability regulations, the regulatory context could change during the time gap between the design phase, construction phase, or operational phase. In the case portfolio, all the projects would be subject to climate disclosure including scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 greenhouse emissions in present time. The disclosure of transitional risks is required in the strategy and decision-making topic of IFRS S2. In the broader context, building operations account for 22% of China’s energy-related emissions. Embodied emission of construction materials is estimated at 28% of the national total (Yang & Li, 2020; CABEE, 2022). In the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy, ESG regulations are following the international standards to shift from voluntary to mandatory compliance.

DISCUSSION

This section discusses the cross-attribute implications. First, from a portfolio perspective, the facade alone is not sufficient to address the disclosure requirement in ESG. Quantifications of facade-associated energy use and material embodied carbon are nonetheless necessary, as these parameters contribute to the portfolio-level reporting. Second, energy and carbon reduction measures in one project could be applied throughout the portfolio. As in the case study, simple measures such as facade specification could be replicated across projects, systematically scaling up the ESG effort.

Third, in regions where there is no local construction database, practitioners could still adopt global data for material impact quantification. Various scholars (Nie, et al., 2013; Zhu et al., 2023). recommended the development of a national database to mitigate building sector emissions. For building professionals in practice, the quantification results will still be useful for understanding the embodied carbon status. Fourth, with urbanization projected for the emerging market, its impact on climate and planetary systems is too substantial to be ignored. This paper sheds light on the major challenges of ESG implementation in a rapidly developing country. To address the barriers to data availability and ESG policy enforcement, governmental and institutional interventions will be imperative.

LIMITATIONS

This paper is an initial attempt to make sense of ESG from the perspective of the facade profession. There are limitations to our analysis. First, the analysis focuses on the design consultant as reporting entity. Future studies may address how different stakeholders in the facade industry derive incentives to align actions with purposes (Freiberg, Rogers & Serafeim, 2022).

As with most emerging economies, there is limited data on local building materials (Nie, et al., 2013; Dai, et al., 2025). Existing literature from the U.S. and Europe was consulted for market comparison in this study (Usbeck et al., 2011; Vitro, 2023; Arup & Saint-Gobain, 2023). Considering the construction practices differ considerably from the U.S. in terms of production structure and energy intensity (Chen, et al., 2019), facade industry in the emerging market could be studied to inform better mitigation.

Finally, this research limited the human health impact to facade energy use and material manufacturing. With wellness being a social indicator, future research can investigate further into the health impact of facades, such as daylighting and natural ventilation (Allen, et al., 2022).

CONCLUSION

ESG acknowledges that a business's financial return is linked to the broader society and environment. To the fragmented building industry, ESG framework provides a more consistent and rigorous indicator of our impact. The question then becomes not only about how to measure our impact, but how to make progress on our impact.

This work was made possible with the Richard Upjohn Research Fellowship from The American Institute of Architects.

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