Sustainable Construction & Climate-resilient Homes

European housing faces a dual challenge: drastically reducing its carbon footprint while adapting to a rapidly changing climate. This requires addressing both the embodied carbon locked into materials and the operational energy used to heat and cool our homes. By substituting concrete with mass timber or hempcrete and embracing circular principles like design for disassembly, sustainable construction aims to build within planetary boundaries. Simultaneously, creating climate-resilient homes demands deep retrofits, heating decarbonisation, and crucial adaptations for hotter summers, such as improved shading and water resilience. Guided by the EU Renovation Wave, this transition must also tackle energy poverty, ensuring efficiency improvements benefit all residents.

On this page, you will find resources exploring these intersections, including literature on circular economy strategies for social housing, insights into adaptive reuse, and reports on how cities must adapt to unprecedented heat. Discover pioneering projects such as Circle House and the ABZ Tower im Koch-Quartier, alongside organisations driving systemic change, from the ecological transition agency ADEME to innovators like 1KOMMA5° and Aira. You can also explore case studies on cooperative serial renovation in Germany and find upcoming industry gatherings, including the 29th International Passive House Conference and the DUT Conference 2026. We invite you to explore the initiatives and knowledge shaping the environmental future of European housing.