Sustainable Building Materials Management in Post-Disaster Situations: Global Call to Action

<p dir="ltr">Disasters destroy hundreds of thousands of buildings annually. Rebuilding requires staggering volumes of material. The adverse socio-environmental impacts of poor post-disaster building materials management have reached truly global and alarming proportions. If not addressed soon, these issues will metastasise to catastrophic levels, exacerbated by rising disasters and climate change impacts. The immense destruction caused by conflict-related disasters will further aggravate this crisis. Despite the advanced tools and know-how available, sustainably managing building materials post-disaster and post-conflict is hindered by policy and governance gaps, limiting the use of more sustainable approaches. Therefore, we call for all responsible international and national authorities to consider sustainable building materials management as an integral part of post-disaster and post-conflict resilience, and to take urgent and concrete policy actions to ensure resilient reconstruction in line with Sendai Framework’s Priority 4 – “Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to build back better in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.” This is also a timely opportunity to raise ambitions of the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0), aligning reconstruction efforts with broader climate commitments.</p>