Cristina Gamboa on quantifying the benefits of a decarbonized economy

Cristina Gamboa is CEO of the World Green Building Council, an influential local-regional-global network focused on “the transformation to sustainable and decarbonized built environments for everyone, everywhere.” She is an economist with a background in sustainability, policy, and multi-stakeholder partnerships; as such, she is a trusted convener in international settings such as UN Climate Change summits and the World Economic Forum. Cristina is from Colombia and lives in London. Before she came to this work, she was an academic economist with a focus on international affairs and a passion for communicating. 

“Collectively, we’ve had a huge win, getting buildings on the global climate agenda. But with visibility comes responsibility,” Cristina says. “Now we have to make sure that the private sector is empowered to deliver progress.” 

She says that the finance community understands that buildings are the largest global asset class, and this is an opportunity. “If we get this right, they can invest in better assets,” she says. “If we work with the finance community and we find ways to delink emissions from growth and, for example, make sure that the retrofit economy really lifts off, we could unlock the benefits of a carbon-free and circular economy.”

Great strides have been made, she says, but there is work to do: “We still don’t have aggregated data to show change at scale. This is a gap that makes our movement vulnerable. The sooner we can quantify benefits, the better.”