Sustainable habitat consists of implementing the right for all to decent and healthy housing while striving to improve buildings’ energy and environmental performance.
Pillars of Sustainable Habitat
One of the characteristics of sustainable housing consists in improving the energy and environmental performance of the building throughout its life cycle by giving priority to:
- Eco-construction of buildings (products, systems, and construction processes);
- Energy efficiency (efficient insulation, generalization of equipment that consumes little electricity);
- The priority use of renewable energies (solar energy, geothermal and aerothermal, wood heating);
- Energy sobriety by transforming individual and collective behavior (eco-management of water and waste).
Reducing the environmental impact of the building sector
In quite a few countries, the building sector is by far the primary source of energy consumption. It alone is responsible for 43% of final energy consumption and, directly or indirectly, nearly a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
The building is energy-intensive and can cause ecological damage throughout its life cycle: production (extraction, manufacture, and transport of materials), maintenance and repairs during the entire occupation, and daily operation (room heating, water heaters, appliances, etc.), destruction of the structure and end-of-life treatment.
To improve the energy performance of buildings, the public authorities are encouraging energy renovation work to be carried out in old housing and orienting new constructions in two directions: the low-consumption building and the positive-energy building, whose heating and lighting needs are low and which produce more energy than it consumes.
Sustainable habitat: Improve the living environment
A dwelling is integrated into an environment, a district, a community, and a territory.
Therefore, improving housing also means integrating housing and its occupants into local life: developing dialogue, encouraging social action by the public authorities and mutual aid among citizens, integrating all collective efforts towards coherent management of resources and the environment, etc.
Sustainable habitat: Fight against fuel poverty
Energy poverty is among the most prevalent aspects of poor housing in many countries. It can be defined as the difficulty or inability to heat and properly equip one’s home at a bearable cost and in acceptable sanitary conditions.
This problem is often caused by the poor condition of the dwellings, which require excessive thermal expenditure due to insufficient insulation or energy-intensive heating equipment.
Fuel poverty is particularly difficult to identify and combat since it often results in voluntary deprivation of individuals to avoid unpaid bills.
Social innovation for the right to housing
The voluntary sector has historically the leading laboratory for social innovations. Its proximity and in-depth knowledge of populations and territories can detect existing social needs and propose responses. New generations of social entrepreneurs are also developing social innovations to provide solutions to significant societal challenges.
Eco-build, eco-renovate, and transform individual and collective practices
Many structures of the Social Economy integrate environmental constraints into the heart of their activities and actions, as such, at different levels:
- prevention: environmental education, awareness of energy savings, etc. ;
- production: use of natural materials, short circuit supply, use of renewable energies, etc. ;
- recovery: reuse, upgrading, renovation.