Climate change mitigation

Climate change mitigation is one of YIT's strategic targets

The built environment and construction consume around half of the world's natural resources and account for around 40% of energy consumption. Around a third of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the use and construction of buildings. Mitigating climate change is a key part of YIT's strategy. We updated our climate target in 2022 and created a carbon roadmap to reduce emissions. The carbon roadmap contains four sets of measures covering the entire construction lifecycle, from sales and design control to procurement and site operations.

Our long-term goal is carbon-neutral construction throughout the value chain. By 2030, we will be carbon neutral in our own operations (scope 1-2) and have reduced emissions in our value chain by more than 30% compared to 2019.

YIT Climate targets 2030

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In terms of its own operations, YIT has already succeeded in reducing emissions by more than 51% compared to 2019 by transitioning to renewable electricity with guarantees of origin. Carbon neutrality also requires switching over to carbon neutral energy sources for our fleet and for the heating and cooling of our own properties. We urge our partners in the supply chain to contribute to achieving substantial emission reductions. For building materials, this applies in particular to concrete and steel products. The roadmap further covers developing the personnel's environmental expertise and updating the company's decision making and incentives system criteria.

We also take climate change into account in our risk management. In Autumn 2020, we launched a detailed climate change risk and opportunity assessment (TCFD), which assessed two different global warming scenarios and their effects on YIT's business. Based on the assessment, we will further develop our risk management.

Greenhouse gas emissions

We will halve the CO2 emissions of our own operations and materials of our self-developed projects by 2030 (compared to 2019).

Emissions from our own operations include emissions from direct and indirect energy consumption (Scope 1 and 2 according to the GHG protocol), as well as emissions from waste generated by our operations and personnel’s business flights (Scope 3). Emissions from materials for self-developed projects include sections A1-A3 and B4 of the building life cycle. Self-developed projects are projects developed by YIT that we build and sell ourselves.

YIT's GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND EMISSION INTENSITY

Reporting scope of YIT's climate targets

In 2020, we managed to reduce emissions from our own operations by 21% (tCO2e/revenue in EUR million). The reduction in emissions was mainly due to the increase in renewable electricity in our production and offices in Finland and Norway. In addition, business flights taken by personnel also decreased due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For materials for self-developed projects, emissions remained almost at the level of the comparison year. In 2020, we focused on increasing our understanding of carbon footprint calculations and the factors that affect our carbon footprint. Among other things, we studied different material alternatives and commissioned several theses on the emissions produced by different materials. In 2020, we also started the construction of two modular wooden apartment buildings in Tampere.

The theses and the carbon footprint calculations have shown that different concrete products are the largest source of emissions due to both their emission factors and quantities. Reducing the emission impact of these products will be particularly important in achieving the emission reduction target of the projects. Steels and reinforcements are the next largest source of emissions – depending on the design solutions of the project – as well as different types of insulation and, for example, plaster boards. This is especially true of apartment buildings with concrete frames, of which we have the most calculation results. In other types of projects, the ratios of the emission effects of materials may differ. For example, in a heavier industrial building, there may be proportionally more structural steel, while in a timber-framed apartment building, the effect of other materials is accentuated with a smaller carbon footprint per unit volume of wood products.

In autumn 2020, we launched group-wide road map work to promote emission reductions in the coming years. The road map will be updated regularly and will guide our work to reduce emissions.

Carbon neutral use of buildingsCarbon neutral use of buildings

We will enable carbon-neutral heating, cooling and hot water in our self-developed projects.

In 2020, we began the construction of almost 100 apartments with geothermal heating. We are planning to implement geothermal heating in a growing number of projects. Much of a building's energy consumption during use consists of heating. The use of geothermal heat is estimated to reduce approximately 50% of in-service energy emissions.

Carbon footprint calculations reporting

We are committed to calculating the carbon footprint of our self-developed projects from 2020 onwards. The carbon footprint calculations help us understand better the materials and various factors that generate our emissions. With the carbon footprint, we can compare different design solutions as well as plan emission reductions. With the launch of project-specific calculations, we are also preparing for future legislation on the assessment of the carbon footprint of buildings. In Finland, we use the current method for the whole life carbon assessment of buildings of the Ministry of the Environment as the calculation method, and in other operating countries, the EU Commission's Level(s) calculation method. Both methods are based on the EN15978 standard.

After setting long-term goals, we have trained our personnel to calculate the carbon footprint of the design phase in almost all of our operating countries. We have also launched the development of automation for accurate calculation of the production phase.

In 2020, we calculated the lifecycle carbon footprint of 98% of our self-developed projects with a modelling calculation in the design phase. We will publish the results of the 2020 Finnish calculations by building type category.

The lifecycle emissions of our Finnish self-developed projects in 2020 (kg CO2e/m2/year) are on average the following:

1) The modelling of the carbon footprint at the design phase results in an estimated 10% lower emission result compared to the accurate calculation of the production phase. 2) The development of the national Finnish low-carbon calculation method for buildings is still in progress. The version from 30 August 2019 has been used in the calculation. 3) m2 means the net heated area, and the planned service life of 50 years has been used as a divisor for emissions.

Environment

We strive to reduce our negative environmental impacts in all of our operations. Read more about YIT’s environmental actions here.

Sustainability management

Sustainability is a significant component of YIT’s strategy and we guide our sustainability in many ways. Explore our sustainability management practices here.

Promotion and actions on Sustainable Development Goals

We are committed to supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). Read what are the most significant of the Sustainable Development Goals with respect to our operations.