Minimizing Energy Consumption, Energy Poverty and Global and Local Climate Change in the Built Environment: Innovating to Zero

Causalities and Impacts in a Zero Concept World

Matthaios Santamouris, Mattheos Santamouris

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780128114186
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Minimizing Energy Consumption, Energy Poverty and Global and Local Climate Change in the Built Environment: Innovating to Zero analyzes three major issues of the built environment, including the political, economic and technical contexts, the impacts of global and local climate change, and the technical and social characteristics of energy poverty. In addition, the book addresses the causes and reasons for the magnitude and characteristics of the built environment's energy consumption.

Users will find a fresh view of energy consumption in the built environment, especially in relation to energy poverty and climate change from the ZERO energy world perspective.

• Presents and analyzes over twenty specific linkages and causalities between energy consumption, climate change and energy poverty
• Describes the state-of-the-art regarding the energy consumption of buildings in Europe and recent trends and characteristics
• Explores how can we transform problems into opportunities
• Examines how we can increase the added value of technological, economic and social interventions to generate wealth and offer employment opportunities

Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract

Buildings is one of the more important economic sectors. The chapter discusses the main benefits and drawbacks of the sector and provides and provides an overview of the main challenges and opportunities associated to the three major problems identified: The high energy consumption of buildings, local and global climate change and energy poverty.

Keywords

Buildings; energy consumption building sector; energy poverty; urban heat island and climate change

The Built Environment: Characteristics, Problems, Prospects and Future Needs

Building is one of the more dynamic economic sectors. Its main function and role is to protect human beings and ensure their quality of life. Buildings, and the construction sector in general, have an enormous potential to generate income and wealth and to create employment, but also to consume energy and resources and to produce pollution and waste. Additionally, it affects the local and global climate, while it is strongly associated with problems of poverty and vulnerability, at least for a large part of the population.

Buildings and construction are inherently dynamic. They act as one of the main promoters of major future development trends in technology and society, aiming to improve people’s quality of life of and transform human societies. The building sector plays a very significant role in global economic activities. The sector is associated with several financial and commercial activities dealing with the management, construction, renovation and the extension of assets in the built environment, including buildings, open spaces and infrastructure. According to IHS Economics (2013), the total budget of the construction industry in 2013 exceeded USD$8.2 trillion, while forecasts for 2025 predict a total budget of close to USD$15 trillion (Global Construction Perspectives and Global Economics 2013). About USD$3 trillion are spent in the residential building sector, USD$2.7 trillion on infrastructure, and USD$2.5 trillion for commercial buildings (IHS Economics, 2013). Concerning the sources of investments, about 70% of the total budget is covered by the public sector and 26% by the private sector, while the rest is invested by official development assistance sources (BWI, 2006a, 2006b).

Buildings and construction generate almost 13% of global GDP, and this figure is expected to increase to 15% by 2020 (Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics, 2013). About 35% of global construction output is in the so-called developing nations, and is expected to increase to 55% in 2020. The major players in the construction sector are countries with emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India, which are experiencing a very rapid increase in population, urbanization and the improvement of living standards (Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics, 2013). As well as their direct impact on and contribution to the global economy, buildings also contribute in indirect ways, influencing several industrial sectors through very well-defined growth linkages. The building sector presents a very high multiplier factor for the global economy. Industries that benefit from the construction sector include the manufacturing of components and materials, the production and exploration of energy and the development of equipment and machinery, as well as many other associated industries.

Parallel to the contribution of the building sector to the economy, the building sector is a very labor intensive sector, contributing a high number of jobs per investment. As mentioned by WIEGO (2015), the construction sector counts as the second most important employer in the world after agriculture. According to official statistical data, the construction sector employs more than 110 million people. Almost 75% of this is in developing countries where employment in the construction sector remains undeclared, and so the number may be much higher. It is characteristics that in India about 89% of the men and 97% of the women working in the building-construction sector are considered to be employees working under informal conditions (Pais, 2002). According to BWI (2006b), the total number of workers (both declared and undeclared) in the construction sector may exceeds180 million.

As mentioned, the construction sector presents an important multiplier factor for the global economy and the employment market. It is well accepted that for each new job in the construction sector many new jobs are also generated in the global economy. In the United States, for each new house built, almost 2.97 new jobs are generated (Emrath, 2015). About 1.76 jobs are directly associated with construction specifically, while the rest are created in the global economy in an indirect way. The industrial sectors that benefit the most from increased employment are manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, warehousing and transportation real estate, services, and finance and insurance. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB, 2015 has performed a study and estimated the impact of building 100 single family houses in a typical zone of the United States. They have estimated the impact of the construction activity (A), the effect of investment and the corresponding tax revenue (B), and the ongoing effect when the building is occupied (C). It is reported that during the three above phases, almost 463 new jobs are created, out of which only 185 are directly associated with the construction activity.

While the building and construction sector contributes highly to generating wealth and improving the quality of life of citizens, it is also associated with several negative impacts. Most of the problems created by the building sector are related to environment, energy, local and global climate change and human...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Energy Consumption and Environmental Quality of the Building Sector
• Chapter 3. Urban Heat Island and Local Climate Change
• Chapter 4. Energy Poverty and Urban Vulnerability
• Chapter 5. Defining the Synergies Between Energy Consumption–Local Climate Change and Energy Poverty
• Chapter 6. Defining Future Targets
• Chapter 7. Technological-Economic and Social Measures to Decrease Energy Consumption by the Building Sector
• Chapter 8. Mitigating the Local Climatic Change and Fighting Urban Vulnerability
• Chapter 9. Eradicating Energy Poverty in the Developed World
• Chapter 10. Concluding Remarks and Policy Proposals
• Index