Target 11.c: Resilient buildings in least developed countries
Support least developed countries, including through financial and technical assistance, in building sustainable and resilient buildings utilizing local materials
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Financial and technical assistance to least developed countries flows chiefly from donors and development banks. Listed cement and building-materials companies nonetheless operate in many of those countries and decide what materials are sold and promoted. Holcim's 14Trees venture with the UK development finance institution CDC shows the corporate lever. Its Durabric compressed-earth block, produced in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia, cuts construction cost by nearly 25 percent and greenhouse-gas emissions tenfold versus fired clay bricks. If every listed materials producer made locally sourced, low-carbon, resilient building products a core objective in least developed countries, the technical side of the target would advance at the margin. Building codes, public housing finance and the aid budgets the target names remain government matters. Owners help but do not determine the outcome.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. No shareholder proposal, investor letter or coalition engagement was located asking a listed cement or building-materials company to expand locally sourced, low-carbon or resilient building products in least developed countries, or to report on technical assistance there. Investor pressure on Holcim and Heidelberg Materials that is documented concerns decarbonisation targets in general rather than this target.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.