Building rehabilitation is a driver for economic recovery and one of the most effective solutions for the fight against climate change and for the energy transition. From the Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN), the Catalan Housing Agency and INCASOL, the Government of the Generalitat promotes the benefits of this practice to improve people's quality of life and energy efficiency coinciding with the celebration, until Friday, October 1, of REhabilita, the Rehabilitation Week.
If you want to change the world, start with your home
With this reivindicative call, a new edition of REhabilita is presented, an annual event whose objective is to transform rehabilitation and maintenance into a new strategic activity sector aimed at improving the urban environment and the well-being of citizens.
In Europe, buildings consume 40% of the total energy produced. For this reason, the European Union has made rehabilitation one of its battle horses in the fight against climate change and the recovery from the economic crisis caused by covid-19, to which it will allocate a significant part of the Next Generation recovery fund.
For its part, the Government has prepared a Housing Rehabilitation and Urban Regeneration Plan for the next four years where 85% of the resources are destined for housing rehabilitation, with a focus on energy efficiency.
The health of buildings in Catalonia
The state of health of Catalan buildings is critical. Only 12% of residential buildings over 45 years old are in good condition. Of the rest, 40% present deficiencies classified as minor, 32% as important and 16% as serious or very serious.
However, the energy saving potential of existing buildings is very large. The energy efficiency scale goes from letter A to G, with A being the best rating and G the worst, and in Catalonia, 85% of buildings have ratings E, F and G. Improving the energy rating from a G to an A can mean an energy saving of 89%. And, therefore, an important contribution to the energy transition and the fight against climate change.
In this sense, it should be noted that 60% of the building stock is prior to 1980, when buildings began to have thermal insulation.
To carry out a rehabilitation project, the intervention of expert technicians is needed, trusted professionals who know how to assess the building's problems and advise and propose the most appropriate technical solutions to improve people's quality of life and the economic performance of the owners.
Missió Rehabilita Program on YouTube
REhabilita is a collective initiative promoted and driven by the Col·legi d'Aparelladors, Arquitectes Tècnics i Enginyers d'Edificació de Barcelona, and which has a Strategic Committee formed by the Barcelona City Council, the AMB, the Diputación de Barcelona, the Generalitat de Catalunya, through the Institut Català d'Energia, the Agència de l'Habitatge de Catalunya and the INCASOL, and representatives from the entire sector.
The program about the event is available on the REhabilita website. In addition, the program Missió Rehabilita, recorded by El Terrat and presented by Cristina Puig, will be broadcast on YouTube, with participants from different fields (economic, political, cultural and social) and with questions from citizens and answers from experts to resolve doubts and guide on rehabilitation.
For more information on building rehabilitation, you can consult the ICAEN website or agenciahabitatge@gencat.cat.
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What are the benefits of building rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation positively impacts essential aspects of our lives: health, comfort, planet sustainability, savings, and accessibility. Some of its multiple benefits:
More health and comfort
- Increases thermal and acoustic comfort and, therefore, the well-being of its occupants.
- Solves health problems such as the appearance of dampness and fungi caused by lack of insulation or ventilation deficiencies.
- Unnecessary energy consumption is reduced, and it is even possible to produce part of the energy consumed renewably and within the same building.
- It contributes to lowering the consumption of natural resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the fight against climate change, and generating less waste.
- Among others, it also allows the incorporation of renewable, recycled and recyclable and/or recovered materials and, in turn, reduces the building's impact on the environment.
- It is a profitable investment. A direct economic saving is produced in energy expenditure and the energy saving achieved is one of the ways to recover the cost of some of the rehabilitation improvements, which can be equivalent to the monthly payment of the loan necessary to make the investment.
- It implies an economic revaluation in the real estate market, given that it represents improving the energy rating of the building and approaching the performance of new buildings. Not rehabilitating is suffering a loss of real estate value.
- It enables energy self-generation from renewable energies and reduces the risk of energy poverty.
- The incorporation of elevators and the elimination of architectural barriers makes buildings more accessible and with this, it also contributes to the social integration of the most vulnerable groups.
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