According to Habitat for Humanity’s 2015 Housing Review1, the cost of housing places a heavy burden on over 10% of European households. Of this 10%, more than 39% of families are also at risk of poverty. This is further backed by Eurostat figures which note that nearly 10% of EU citizens live in severe “material deprivation” – in new Member States this figure is almost double (18.6%). And it seems that the situation is not improving.
There is a growing need for more affordable, energy efficient, comfortable housing, especially in our cities. We need innovative new collaborations from key players with scalable responses to these pressing challenges. This event provided a shared space for a range of stakeholders to consider what more the construction sector can do to help deliver solutions.
In its contribution to the social pillar of sustainability, The Concrete Initiative commits to work with key stakeholders to accelerate the availability of affordable housing. It calls upon policymakers to ensure that sufficient financial flows are redirected towards boosting sustainable development.
On 26 May 2016, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which focuses on the cost of energy incurred by European households. As noted by the Parliament, the current and ongoing energy transition, which involves moving away from a traditional and centralised energy generation model towards one which is more decentralised, energy-efficient and based significantly on renewable energy, does involve an increase in costs.
New research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have found a way of identifying which buildings offer the greatest potential when it comes to retrofitting for energy efficiency. Thanks to these finding it may be possible to indentify which retrofitting programs offer the highest return on investment and have the greatest impact on a city's overall greenhouse gas emissions.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has recently endorsed the Charter on Sustainable Housing which seeks to ensure the access to decent, affordable and healthy housing in the UNECE region.
With the informal Ministerial meeting on urban matters agreeing on the Pact of Amsterdam on 30 May 2016, the wheels of the EU Urban Agenda have now been set in motion. The main aim of this initiative is to improve the implementation of EU and national polices by getting cities involved. Indeed, when it comes to translating policies into concrete action, cities have a major role to play. at this stage, four partnerships have so far been launched. These cover air quality, housing, urban poverty and the inclusion of refugees and migrants.
