RMIT analysis finds 84% of European city buildings lack adequate tree canopy for cooling

New York City's C-PACE administrator has adopted new guidelines that replace a cost-based lending formula with loan-to-value underwriting, potentially increasing loan sizes by roughly 40% for qualifying projects. The new framework caps borrowing at 35% of a property's stabilized value, adds embodied carbon as an eligible measure, and lets lenders disburse funds in tranches rather than a single lump sum at closing. Mike Doty, Nuveen Green Capital's senior director of originations for the Northeast, said the new test is easier to underwrite and could push loan sizes roughly 40% higher. The embodied-carbon change could benefit adaptive reuse projects, including office-to-residential conversions, which preserve more of a building's existing structure than ground-up construction. State legislation now awaiting the governor's signature would codify the loan-to-value and tranche-funding changes into law, giving lenders and sponsors more certainty than guidance alone. Nuveen Green Capital has closed more than $7 billion across over 750 C-PACE deals nationwide, and its C-PACE fund recently topped $1 billion.

A new Capgemini Research Institute report finds that 68% of executives now say their organization actively prioritizes climate adaptation, up from 56% in 2025, yet only 15% have fully quantified the financial impact of climate-related disruptions. The fifth edition of A World in Balance: The resilience reset, based on a survey of 2,100 executives at 701 organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue across 13 countries, also shows the share of organizations falling behind on net zero goals rising to 11% in 2026 from 1% in 2025, with 29% saying they have postponed their net zero objectives, compared with just 8% last year. Nearly nine in 10 organizations report climate-related supply-chain disruptions, and more than seven in 10 executives say securing access to critical resources such as energy, water and materials now influences sustainability decisions more than emissions-reduction targets. Sustainability spending reached 1.04% of revenue last year, above the 0.8% initially allocated, and 83% of organizations plan to increase climate adaptation spending over the next 12 to 18 months. Cyril Garcia, Global head of Sustainability services and Corporate Responsibility at Capgemini, said climate disruptions have become the new normal and that leaders can no longer defer climate action.

With natural disasters such as torrential rains and earthquakes occurring one after another, the challenge is whether social infrastructure and housing can be restored quickly after a disaster. The Sanae Takaichi administration has listed disaster prevention and national resilience as one of 17 strategic investment areas, and expectations are growing in both the public and private sectors for the use of artificial intelligence and information and communications technology. According to materials compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in March, the number of licensed construction contractors stood at 484,000 at the end of fiscal 2024, down about 20 percent from the peak at the end of fiscal 1999, while the number of workers in the construction industry in 2024 was about 4.77 million, down roughly 30 percent from the peak in 1997. The share of construction workers aged 55 and older is high at 36.7 percent, while those aged 15 to 29 account for only 11.7 percent. According to Teikoku Databank, construction industry bankruptcies in 2025 rose 6.9 percent from the previous year to 2,021 cases, increasing for a fourth consecutive year and marking the highest level in the past decade. A disaster management agency that will serve as the command center during disasters is scheduled to be established during 2026, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and local governments are advancing the use of satellite data and drone imagery to assess damage, while the introduction of remote-controlled construction machinery and automated construction is also progressing.