Shaping a healthy, sustainable, and resilient future
The impact of unhealthy buildings
Healthy buildings emphasise the health and well-being of their inhabitants, safeguard and enhance sustainability, and enable transformation through empowerment and resilience. That is why healthy buildings should be the only type of buildings in which people live, learn, work, play, or recover.
However, Europe’s built environment is falling short of safeguarding the health of its occupants in a number of ways.
Poor indoor air quality
Poor indoor air quality from inadequate air exchange and/or improperly managed HVAC systems could increase pollutants such as radon, toxic volatile organic compounds and microbes. Nearly 100,000 Europeans lost their lives to indoor air pollution in 2012 alone. Renovation work to increase insulation and air tightness without proper consideration of air exchange can also lead to issues like dampness and mould.
Health and occupant needs
Buildings are the cause of a number health issues ranging from respiratory and skin problems, headaches and allergies to serious mental health concerns and life-threatening heat or cold. There is also a significant lack of buildings that adapt to people’s varying physical needs and requirements.
Adaptation to climate change
Faced with changing and more extreme weather, buildings are struggling to keep inhabitants cool in summer and warm in winter. An estimated 15,000 people died from the 2022 heatwave across Europe, while inefficient heating systems mean people are finding it difficult to stay warm in winter.
Setting the scene
Today, indoor environmental quality and health impacts of buildings are mentioned in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Energy Efficiency First (EE1) guidelines as an important co-benefit to energy efficiency. The newest EPBD also introduces a definition of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and mandates member states to set requirements for IEQ standards, however, an integrated, strategic approach to ensuring the health of occupants of buildings is still missing.
