Regenerative

Bhutan

The steady urbanization of the Thimphu Paro Capital region and its growing demand for housing and infrastructure has threatened both the natural ecosystems and national cultural heritage of its local landscapes. The sector’s current reliance on extractive, mineral-based, and energy- and emissions-intensive building materials, means, and methods, on poorly performing urban construction assemblies and structural/architectural typologies, and on outsourced construction labor, management, and finance by non-Bhutanese building developers and workforces, has made the construction of housing in Bhutanese cities like Thimphu both financially unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable.

Although Bhutan’s abundant forest cover and constitutionally mandated forest protections serve to make this small country a global model of national carbon neutrality, the Bhutanese construction sector creates a significant counterforce to the country’s perceived environmental health, its measurement of “gross national happiness” and His Majesty’s vision for a deeply sustainable society and ecosystem.