Current Status of Sustainable Construction in Europe

Session

Architecture and Spatial Planning

Description

At present, the construction sector is one of the industries generating the greatest environmental impact and therefore it increases pollution and thus natural disasters occurring due to climate change. For this reason, the sector must encourage sustainable development, which is currently aimed – primarily- at achieving zero environmental impact. However, at present, the concept of sustainability is not solving the environmental problems caused by the sector and requires an immediate change [4]. In addition, the level of sustainable implementation in Europe varies substantially from one country to another. In some countries, a movement wanting to go further has been formed; shifting from implementing degenerative or "less bad" strategies to other strategies aiming a positive net environmental impact, by means of regenerative sustainability criteria. Regenerative sustainability promotes buildings that not only achieve zero environmental impact, but their impact is positive, meaning that buildings are able to "regenerate" their users and the environment. In this sense, the COST Action "RESTORE" (REthinking Sustainability TOwards to Regenerative Economy) was developed, aiming to transform the sector and promote this new way of understanding sustainability.This work presents the first results obtained in the RESTORE Action and particularly in Working Group 3 that deals with Sustainable Building Construction, regarding the level of implementation of sustainability in the different countries of Europe. For this, a short survey was developed, focusing on three main construction aspects: materials, technology and tools. The survey was sent to more than 150 professionals and 62 responses were received. Results show that, in general, there is a lack of regenerative sustainability criteria in Europe, especially in the southern countries. Most countries rely on traditional materials and technologies rather than advanced and emerging materials and techniques. Finally, the results obtained help to understand the current situation of sustainability and to identify the challenges and difficulties of implementing Sustainable Construction in the Europe.

Keywords:

construction, sustainability, regenerative, environment, Europe

Session Chair

Lulzim Beqiri

Session Co-Chair

Mimoza Sylejmani

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi

ISBN

978-9951-550-19-2

Location

Pristina, Kosovo

Start Date

26-10-2019 1:30 PM

End Date

26-10-2019 3:00 PM

DOI

10.33107/ubt-ic.2019.239

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Oct 26th, 1:30 PM Oct 26th, 3:00 PM

Current Status of Sustainable Construction in Europe

Pristina, Kosovo

At present, the construction sector is one of the industries generating the greatest environmental impact and therefore it increases pollution and thus natural disasters occurring due to climate change. For this reason, the sector must encourage sustainable development, which is currently aimed – primarily- at achieving zero environmental impact. However, at present, the concept of sustainability is not solving the environmental problems caused by the sector and requires an immediate change [4]. In addition, the level of sustainable implementation in Europe varies substantially from one country to another. In some countries, a movement wanting to go further has been formed; shifting from implementing degenerative or "less bad" strategies to other strategies aiming a positive net environmental impact, by means of regenerative sustainability criteria. Regenerative sustainability promotes buildings that not only achieve zero environmental impact, but their impact is positive, meaning that buildings are able to "regenerate" their users and the environment. In this sense, the COST Action "RESTORE" (REthinking Sustainability TOwards to Regenerative Economy) was developed, aiming to transform the sector and promote this new way of understanding sustainability.This work presents the first results obtained in the RESTORE Action and particularly in Working Group 3 that deals with Sustainable Building Construction, regarding the level of implementation of sustainability in the different countries of Europe. For this, a short survey was developed, focusing on three main construction aspects: materials, technology and tools. The survey was sent to more than 150 professionals and 62 responses were received. Results show that, in general, there is a lack of regenerative sustainability criteria in Europe, especially in the southern countries. Most countries rely on traditional materials and technologies rather than advanced and emerging materials and techniques. Finally, the results obtained help to understand the current situation of sustainability and to identify the challenges and difficulties of implementing Sustainable Construction in the Europe.