#MoveTheDate
4
Days
Eliminating all direct emissions from buildings by adopting electric heating, electric stoves, and heat pumps would move Earth Overshoot Day by 4 days.
What is the solution?
Replacing gas-powered furnaces, hot water heaters, and stoves with electric alternatives.
This solution improves our resource security in the energy category.
How does it #MoveTheDate?
Replacing fossil fuels with electricity provides the opportunity to decarbonize buildings. For building electrification to reduce carbon emissions, the energy grid must be cleaner, on average, than natural gas.
How is it scalable?
This solution can be implemented immediately in areas with access to cleaner electricity via renewable energy.
What is the solution?
Replacing gas-powered furnaces, hot water heaters, and stoves with electric alternatives.
This solution improves our resource security in the energy category.
How does it #MoveTheDate?
Replacing fossil fuels with electricity provides the opportunity to decarbonize buildings. For building electrification to reduce carbon emissions, the energy grid must be cleaner, on average, than natural gas.
How is it scalable?
This solution can be implemented immediately in areas with access to cleaner electricity via renewable energy.
Direct emissions from buildings make up approximately 10% of global carbon emissions. Fossil fuels represent 33% to 50% of overall energy consumption in buildings. Therefore, building electrification would help reduce direct emissions from buildings and #MoveTheDate.
However, shifting buildings entirely to electricity would place significant new demands on the grid. Buildings currently consume more than 55% of global electricity and electrification would potentially increase their electricity consumption by one third. Businesses like Schneider Electric support the transformation to an all-electric world with a more sustainable, resilient, efficient and people-centric building.
For more information on CO2 emissions and buildings, see this article from the International Energy Agency.
There’s no benefit in waiting!
Acting now puts you at a strategic advantage in a world increasingly defined by ecological overshoot. Countless solutions exist that #MoveTheDate. They’re creative, economically viable, and ready to deploy at scale. With them, we can make ourselves more resilient and #MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day. If we move the date 6 days each year, humanity can be out of overshoot before 2050.