Women are naturally endowed with the transcendent leadership potentials to effectively influence their immediate environment. This is evident by the multi-tasking potential, ethical and moral authorities intrinsically exuded in their endeavors. Women are successful leaders when at the highest echelons of organization, because the traits of agency, connection, authenticity, and wholeness are integrated in their career decisions. Women leaders have a self-awareness of their skills and values which they intentionally infuse in leadership styles to strengthen relationships for balanced network of roles, towards organization's success. Women's leadership savvy is affirmed as a function of success, essential for any organization to effectively achieve its goals. Hence, this chapter presents the roles of professional women leaders in promoting sustainability of the built environment. This chapter contends that a cross functional collaboration between the professional architects, builders, and quantity surveyors in the built environment guarantees synergy solutions to achieving the UN SDGs.
Top1. Introduction
The built environment is described as the man-made environment created for man to live, work, as well as recreate; encompassing buildings, parks, transport networks, water supply and sanitation network among others (Lawlor, 2021). The anthropogenic carbon emission from the built environment is the highest contributor to the rise in the Earth’s temperature (nearly 1.90c) among other sectors (Masson-Delmotte, 2021). Buildings have the highest share in the global carbon emission with about 28% contribution from building operations and 11% from building materials and construction (Cortese & Maxwell, 2020). It implies that carbon emission is generated from the point of materials manufacture, to construction, building use, and up to deconstruction (World Green Building Council, GBC, 2023; European Energy Efficiency Commission, EEEC, 2018). While the emission has continued to influence global warming, the world is being subjected to bounce from crisis to crisis related to increasing climate change (Global Sustainable Development, GSD, Report, 2023). This pose serious threat to the balance of the global environmental, social and economic sustainability. Addressing the climate change through the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13: “reduce global greenhouse gas emissions”, thus becomes crucial.
The Final GSD Report (2023) revealed that the current state of progress towards the achievement of SDG 13 is yet far from the set target of 43% by 2030; the trend of the SDG progress tends to deterioration. The United Nations SDG’s call for increased ambition and transformative interventions from individual and collective action of all and sundry is acceded as key shifts to accelerate SDG progress (GSD Report, 2019). Yet, the achievement of the target on carbon emission reduction remains impracticable if stringent actions are not taken by the built environment professionals to reduce emissions from the built environment. The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) underscored the urgency in decarbonizing the built environment by mandating that both new buildings and existing assets retrofit be at net zero carbon emission across their whole life cycle by 2050 (World GBC, 2023). This calls for concerted roles to be played by all the professionals in sustainable design, sustainable construction, sustainable operational use, and sustainable deconstruction of buildings towards reducing buildings carbon footprints as well as mitigating climate change. The built professionals include the architects, builders, engineers, quantity surveyors, urban planners, among others.