BUILDING STOCK
The urgency of healthy, sustainable and resilient buildings exposed
The state of buildings throughout Europe can no longer be ignored: 50 million Europeans live in energy poverty, 15% of Europeans live in derived housing circumstances and a 9 % housing cost overburden rate - and still rising.
What's more, one out of three Europeans are exposed to an indoor climate hazard negatively affecting health, well-being and productivity. It was found that people exposed to all four hazards; damp and mould, lack of daylight, noise and cold are four times more likely to report poor health compared to people living in healthy homes.
Indoor climate hazards are common throughout Europe
Across the European countries covered in this study, nearly 163 million people (or the equivalent of the population of Germany, Spain and the UK) are exposed to at least one of the four indoor climate hazards; damp and mould, lack of daylight, noise and cold.
29 million consider home to be dark
34 million unable to keep home adequately warm
92 million exposed to excessive noise
69 million live with damp and mould
Detailed data in the report reveals the distributed percentage of exposure to the four indoor hazards across the European regions.
Illustration: Percentage of population of EU+27 countries affected by one or more indoor climate hazards