Building with wood, straw, and hemp. Biobased materials are seeing ever more use in the construction sector, which needs to become more sustainable as it is one of the major sources of soil, air and water pollution.

Local governments in Europe are notoriously risk averse, city council officials and industry leaders won’t hesitate to tell you.

Home sweet home. Houses are supposed to be our nest, a shelter from the world outside. But how healthy are European homes? Nowadays most of our time is spent indoors, often at home, one reason being the current shift to “desk jobs”.

Energy consumption in the construction sector is a key issue in the fight against climate change. It is often approached when planning new buildings, but there is little tendency to renovate the existing stock .

Thousands of kilometres of increasingly sophisticated and cutting-edge transmission lines, in other words supergrids , are on the EU agenda. Projects for high voltage links between countries are already being implemented.

Despite increasing talk about renewable energy, many people remain far removed from what’s going on. To tackle this, various projects have been developed over the years helping users to better understand and use green energy sources.

Smart buildings appear to respond to a range of energy challenges found in Europe today. Improved efficiency would help consumers reduce income spent on energy consumption, reduce greenhouse emissions and also help EU countries meet the goals of the 2030 energy strategy .

Buildings account for 36% of CO 2 emissions in Europe, and energy consumption in this sector has increased in recent decades.

Today, one of the new challenges for the construction industry is the use of textiles, coming from the clothing and footwear industries.

As more and more cities launch projects to become smart, a substantial need is emerging: the ability to share the various models across the world so that they can be replicated anywhere.

It's a brand new sector: the first steps date back to 2012. Today energy crowdfunding is a way of financing solar panel or wind turbine projects.

Bioenergy represents two-thirds of the energy produced from renewable sources in Europe, though biomass sustainability is not taken for granted.

Traditionally our electricity grids were designed to move power from large nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to consumers, but renewable energy will see changes to allow smaller power generation from wind and solar to be hooked up to the grid.

One of the  biggest challenges of retrofitting projects  is to make them attractive to residents. Now, one of them, the EU-funded project R2CITIES,  is analysing the initial first feedback received from residents  of the  Cuatro de Marzo  district.

To tackle climate change, new buildings are required to consume as little energy as possible . That’s because, in Europe, buildings are responsible for about 40% of our energy consumption.

Cuatro de Marzo is a district in the southern part of the Spanish city of Valladolid. It is a dense residential area with 190 privately-owned dwellings, developed in 1955.

Cities substantially contribute to European air pollution as they are the source of about 36% of the total CO 2 emissions. Modern cities therefore raise sustainability concerns.

Imagine a city could halve its energy consumption, costs and greenhouse gas emissions. This would get closer to levels that would ensure sustainability of resources.

Those who live in low-energy buildings are not experts. But energy professionals have been aware of the importance of meeting their needs, right from conception stage.

The construction of a building does not only start with its design by architects and engineers.