Language: English

Format: In-person only

Buildings have the largest potential for improving energy efficiency and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonizing the housing stock is very costly and creates a financial burden on inhabitants, often causing “energy poverty” among the lower-income population. In the UNECE region, which includes most of the “rich” countries in the world, almost 42 million people face arrears on their utility bills and more than 52 million people cannot keep their homes adequately warm. There is a need for implementing large-scale housing renovation programmes that are affordable for all. Such programmes are essential to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and related SDGs.  

This workshop was a side event to the International Social Housing Festival. It presented the UNECE-Housing Europe-UN-Habitat study “#Housing2030: Effective policies for affordable housing in the UNECE region” containing a toolkit on affordable climate-neutral housing to demonstrate its use in mitigating potential negative social impacts of decarbonization strategies on vulnerable sections of the society, particularly young people.  

It supported the regional exchange of experiences and good practices in countries of the UNECE region on promoting access to decent, adequate, affordable and healthy housing as part of the countries’ responses to and recovery plans for the COVID-19 pandemic (this included the topics of “greening” cities and housing, using architectural and urban planning solutions and innovations to promote better quality of life, etc). 

The #Housing2030 study and an online platform at www.housing2030.org were launched on 6 October 2021 at the UNECE Housing Ministerial Meeting. The side event also informed about the “Place and Life in the ECE – A Regional Action Plan 2030: Tackling challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate and housing emergencies in region, city, neighbourhood and homes” which builds on conclusions of the #Housing2030 study, as well as other relevant tools and practices, including the UNECE High Performance Buildings Initiative.

Organizers:

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and Housing Europe.

Permanent URL: https://unece.org/housing/events/workshop-climate-neutral-housing-helsinki