April 5, 2012
The total building stock worldwide totaled 145.1 billion square meters in 2011, of which 75% was in residential buildings. Commercial, residential, and industrial buildings are responsible for 49% of the world’s energy consumption and 47% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Much of this energy is consumed needlessly and can be reduced through cost-effective measures. Hard data describing the size and character of the global building footprint, however, is scarce. Although the building construction industry has not yet fully recovered from the financial crash of 2008-2009, the global building stock is expected to expand steadily over the coming decade. According to a new report from Pike Research, the building stock will grow to 182.5 billion square meters, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.3%, by 2021.
Most of the new growth will occur in China, where about 2 billion square meters are added to the commercial and residential building stock every year. However, the building stocks of North America, Western Europe, and other regions will grow significantly as well over the next decade.
“New construction is still lagging behind 2007 levels in many regions of the world, and the building industry has turned its attention to the existing building stock to find opportunities for energy efficiency technologies as a result,” says senior analyst Eric Bloom. “As the recovery in commercial and residential real estate gathers momentum over the next several years, however, the growing building stock will provide even more opportunity for the building industry in both new and existing buildings.”
China has more building space than any other country in the world, and ongoing investment in commercial and residential buildings will continue to grow over the next 10 years at a rate more than double that seen in the rest of the world. While the majority of China’s 1.3 billion people still live in rural areas today, about 52% of the population will be urban by 2021, at which point the national population will be about 1.4 billion. This urban migration will be matched by new construction in China’s cities. The building stock in 2011 was about 34.9 billion square meters, which will grow to 55.7 billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 4.8%.
Pike Research’s report, “Global Building Stock Database”, provides data and forecasts on the size and growth of the global building stock from 2011 to 2021 as well as a qualitative description of key drivers and trends in the building stock. The data covers eight commercial building types (office, retail, education, healthcare, hotels and restaurants, institutional/assembly, warehouse, and transport) and two residential building types (single-family detached and multi-unit residential) for seven regions worldwide. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website.
Contact: Richard Martin
+1 303 997 7609