Today, 75% of the european building stock is energy inefficient. By 2030, the EU has the objective of renovating 35 million of those energy-inefficient buildings. How could it be possible to achieve that goal in 8 years? 

To achieve climate neutrality and significant benefits from a zero-pollution perspective, new buildings will need to be zero-emission by 2030 and one fifth of the existing ones will need to be retrofitted. These are some of the numbers that are included in the EU Strategic Foresight Report 2022, that investigates in ‘Twinning the green and digital transition in the new geopolitical context’, in order to bring a forward-looking and comprehensive perspective on the interplay between the twin transitions towards 2050.

Demographic trends and urbanisation will boost the changes in demand for buildings.

Facing challenges 

There are several challenges the building sector will have to face: 

• Reaching climate neutrality in the sector would require replacing fossil fuel heating with sustainable alternatives, such as heat pumps, reducing the carbon footprint from water use and improving overall energy performance, while ensuring that solutions available to all. 
• By 2030, Building Information Modelling (BIM) could further increase the sector's energy and water efficiency, providing long-term analysis of design choices in construction an use of buildings. This will be capital because growing urban population will double the size of the global building stock by 2060.
• Digital twins could enhance planning, monitoring and management of urban spaces. It could also translate in reduced urban emissions, increased resource efficiencies and quality of life, increasing the resilience of buildings.
• Digital logbook and life cycle analysis (LCA) will help reduce the environmental impact of materials, tracking information on emissions.