The Kingdom of Bhutan, under the leadership of His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has called for the sustainable transformation of his country’s urban construction sector. 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 labour, management, and finance by non-Bhutanese building developers and workforces, has made Bhutanese city building both unaffordable and unsustainable. If such practices continue, the building sector will be unable to meet demand nor provide for the health, well-being, and livelihood of its urban citizenry, while contributing only marginally to the country’s domestic economy. Moreover, the continuing operation and maintenance of building stock produced today will create ongoing technical and financial burdens only to serve as stranded assets in the foreseeable future.

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.