Policies

Most people in the EU spend approximately 90% of their time in buildings and 100% in the built environment. Buildings shape social and cultural constructs and affect the health, well-being and productivity of people. Buildings also account for over 40% of EU carbon emissions, while half of all raw materials and a third of all waste in the EU is construction related.  A large part of this is determined during design and it is imperative that architects are empowered to improve decision making in the sector.

Addressing the Climate and Biosphere Emergency requires urgent action to establish a financial, regulatory and research framework that:
-Embeds feedback and the validation of achieved performance in use at its core to accelerate innovation and to facilitate accountability for quality and performance;
-Tackles impacts and promotes benefits across the entire life span of buildings and components to ensure that lifecycle impacts can be fully considered up-front;
-Recognises the creation of social, economic and environmental value as fundamental to achieving a step-change in the performance of the EU building stock.
Read more about the actions ACE advocates based on feedback from ACE members representing over 562,000 architects in Europe.