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Description
In the context of progressing climate change, the question of balanced construction methods becomes increasingly important. Changes in behaviors and customs of tenants and house owners will reduce natural resources consumption and will help with better environmental protections. That includes the energy usage, water resources, fossil fuels, as well as generating waste and CO2 emissions. According to the statistics from the European Commission, European buildings are responsible for 40% of energy use, 30% of water usage, 50% of natural resources consumption, 33% of generated waste, and 36% of the emitted CO2. Housing sector constitutes 68% of the building space in Poland and that is why taking action to increase their energy efficiency and overall quality could significantly help in meeting goals we agreed to as part of the Paris Agreement, which is expecting our economy to become carbon-neutral by 2050. In collaboration with local governments, home associations and NGOs we will organize a series of meetings around Poland. It will help expand the knowledge of the house and apartment owners related to efficient use of the resources, changing their behaviors, and preserving resources, as well as the knowledge of the available modernizations for buildings that will help the environment. We will organize a series of open webinars dedicated to the issues related to balanced development and housing. Based on our meetings and experiences we will design a toolkit, or a model rulebook, for an eco-house. We will also create a set of traditional and online tools that will contain comprehensive information on the project. We will also run a nationwide social campaign “ECO-house Week” that will be composed of a series of activating initiatives, encouraging others to change their attitudes and showing results of those changes.
Summary of project results
Due to advancing climate change, the question of balanced development becomes increasingly important. However, changes to habits and behaviors among apartment and house dwellers could reduce the use of natural resources and help with protecting the environment. These would be applicable both when it comes to energy usage, water resources, using fossil fuels, as well as generating waste and CO2 emissions. According to the European Commission statistics, buildings in Europe are responsible for 40% of our energy usage, 30% of our water usage, 50% of our natural resources usage, 33% of our waste generation, and 36% of the CO2 emissions. The housing sector constitutes 68% of all Polish usable square footage, and that is why actions directed at improving the usage of energy and resources at homes and in apartments could help us meet the goals of the Paris Accord significantly. According to the Paris agreement, we are obliged to decarbonize our economy by 2050.In collaboration with experts, we have organized a series of educational webinars across Poland. It allowed us to spread more knowledge among the house and apartment owners and dwellers related to usage, change of behaviors, better resource management, as well as knowledge on modernizing buildings in an environmentally friendly way. Based on these meetings and experiences we have developed a balanced household guidebook, in which we present effective and savings-generating ways to run a household.We have also created a packet of materials, including comprehensive information on the project. They are available at budynkijakludzie.plgbc.org.pl. We have conducted a national civic campaign entitled “One week at the ECO House,” composed of a number of activities encouraging change of one’s attitudes and highlighting positive effects of changing one’s behavior. We have also presented our project at the Good Practices Congress and made its way to be included on the Architectural Education Map of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning. These actions allowed us to reach many people across the country – in total we collaborated with 50 different entities, talked to residents from large cities and small towns, universities, high schools, housing associations and others. We plan on continuing collaborating with some of these groups. We have estimated that the “One week at the ECO House” campaign reached 100,000 individuals.
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