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Growing attention to embodied carbon and whole-life carbon assessment is renewing interest in international approaches that translate climate goals into practical action. Among them is Denmark’s Reduction Roadmap, a research-based initiative that converts the emissions limits outlined in the Paris Agreement into measurable carbon targets for new buildings to get the industry back within the Planetary Boundaries. Developed by Danish architecture firm CEBRA, part of Lemay’s global ecosystem, alongside architecture firm EFFEKT and engineering firm Artelia, the framework has since informed similar efforts in Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Australia. To learn more about the initiative, its evolution, and what it could mean for Canada, UrbanToronto spoke with CEBRA Partner Mikkel Hallundbæk Schlesinger.
Schlesinger says the Roadmap grew out of a disconnect between the building industry’s sustainability ambitions and what climate science actually requires. “The main problem is that we are talking a lot about sustainability, and we are going to conferences, and we’re calling our buildings sustainable, but in fact they are not,” Schlesinger told UrbanToronto. “They’re very far from even following the Paris Agreement, and extremely far from being sustainable in the sense that they support a planet in balance and support staying within the safe and just planetary boundaries.”
The Reduction Roadmap emerged alongside Denmark’s shift toward regulating buildings through whole-life lifecycle assessment (LCA). Introduced in 2021 with support from Danish universities and industry partners, it expanded the focus from operational energy to emissions across a building’s lifecycle, including material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, construction, operation, and eventual demolition.
That broader perspective exposed a major gap. The Reduction Roadmap study revealed that while stricter energy standards had reduced operational emissions, most emissions still came from construction materials even as building practices changed little. The project team concluded that existing regulations fell well short of the reductions required by climate science and set out to create a framework that translated global climate objectives into measurable targets for buildings.
“We knew that buildings are one of the largest emitters of CO₂ in the world, but when we looked at the way we designed our buildings, it was more or less the same as it had been 10 or even 20 years earlier,” Schlesinger said. “In Denmark, almost all buildings are made with precast concrete. The recipe has not changed for 70 years.”
Working with researchers, the team based the Roadmap on the Paris Agreement’s remaining global carbon budget. Their analysis concluded that global greenhouse gas emissions would need to fall by about 95 per cent to help return within planetary limits, translating into an approximately 96 per cent reduction target for building emissions on a per-square-metre basis. Rather than leaving those figures at the global scale, the Roadmap converted them into annual whole-life carbon targets for individual buildings, giving governments, designers, developers, and investors a practical benchmark grounded in climate science.
“All the targets and the roadmaps that were done before this were based on where we are now and where it is realistic for us to go next year,” Schlesinger said. “None of them were measured against climate science or against global targets.” He added that the Reduction Roadmap created a direct link between the Paris Agreement, the Planetary Boundaries framework, and the day-to-day regulations and decision-making processes that shape how buildings are designed and constructed.
In its second version, the Reduction Roadmap 2.0 quickly moved beyond research in 2023-2024. More than 630 Danish organizations across the building industry signed a pledge supporting regulations aligned with climate science. That coalition helped shift the conversation from whether emissions should be reduced to how quickly reductions could be achieved. Although not fully adopted, the industry's historical movement helped tighten the CO₂ threshold by 40%, put in effect from 2025.
Updated whole-life carbon limits encouraged manufacturers to develop lower-carbon products while prompting project teams to rethink long-established construction methods. Schlesinger points to rapid improvements in concrete production and growing use of lightweight timber construction as examples of how clear targets accelerated innovation, even though further reductions will still be needed to meet the Paris Agreement.
“What really surprised us, in a good way, is that the request for this is huge,” Schlesinger shared. “As soon as people get that, as soon as they know what to do and that it’s possible, they’re eager to do it.” He noted that the Roadmap gave the industry “agency and a clear direction for what to do and how to do it,” adding that “we never had a single entity questioning whether it was true. Everybody accepted right away… the only question had been about the pace.”
The work has since expanded through Beyond the Roadmap and the Butterfly Framework, broadening the focus beyond carbon to include biodiversity, resource consumption, and planetary health. Rather than treating climate change as an isolated issue, the framework argues that emissions, ecosystems, and resource use are inseparable, encouraging the building industry to pair carbon reductions with regenerative actions such as protecting and restoring natural systems.
“We had this tunnel vision for a long time, looking at carbon only, but in fact the climate crisis is a symptom of another crisis, which is a resource crisis,” said Schlesinger. “If we look at climate alone, we risk making bad decisions, because we think that we are solving the problems, but in fact we’re just creating other problems.” He added that protecting nature offers an opportunity to address both climate change and biodiversity loss simultaneously, describing it as “the best, cheapest way and best for biodiversity” to remove carbon from the atmosphere while restoring ecological health.
Although developed using Danish data and policy frameworks, the Reduction Roadmap’s open-source methodology was designed to be adapted by other jurisdictions using their own emissions data and national standards. For Canada, Schlesinger sees whole-life LCA as the logical starting point for measuring embodied carbon, setting reduction targets early in design, and informing material choices. He also argues that renovating and upgrading existing buildings can often deliver greater environmental benefits than replacing them with new construction.
Canada’s extensive forests and natural landscapes present opportunities that Denmark lacks. By linking investment in the built environment with long-term protection and restoration of natural systems, Schlesinger believes Canada could pursue a more regenerative model of development. Following presentations to Canadian audiences, including a recent conference in Toronto, he said interest in adapting the Roadmap has continued to grow, with Lemay exploring how its principles could help inform a Canadian framework.
“The first step is to start doing LCA calculations and set targets for that,” Schlesinger noted. “Measure where you are today and start setting targets for where you need to be tomorrow and the day after.” He added that the methodology is already being adopted internationally: “The building industry in Sweden and Australia adopted the roadmap; they are adopting it right now in Germany and Austria. So it’s open source. You can make your Canadian Reduction Roadmap and start doing the same thing that we do.” Data can be found at reductionroadmap.dk.
Despite the scale of the challenge, Schlesinger remains optimistic. He points to Denmark, where clearer carbon targets have accelerated advances in materials, manufacturing, and design while investors increasingly recognize climate-related financial risks. With growing interest among Canadian professionals, he believes the same momentum can develop here.
“I think the building industry is super innovative, and as soon as we get a challenge and we understand it, and we know what the demands are, we’ll get there,” Schlesinger said. He noted that “clients, developers, and investors start to care,” explaining that investors increasingly recognize the long-term risks of inaction and the value of future-proofing their portfolios.
The Reduction Roadmap continues to evolve as an open-source framework that jurisdictions can adapt using their own emissions data and policy priorities. With Lemay exploring how its principles could be applied in Canada, the initiative offers a practical example of how climate science can be translated into measurable objectives for the building industry.
“I’m sensing quite a lot of enthusiasm around this, and around implementing the same kind of thinking in Canada,” Schlesinger said. “I think there is a way forward for a Canadian roadmap.”
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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
