Housing 4.0 Energy Press Release
4 July 2018
The 29th of May was a great day for the future of the European housing industry, as the project Housing 4.0 Energy (H4.0E), was approved by the European subsidy programme Interreg North West Europe. Made up of five partner countries in North West Europe (NWE), the three-year H4.0E project will facilitate the uptake of low carbon and digital technologies, products, processes and services in the NWE housing sector to reduce carbon emissions and improve quality of life for homeowners in the region and beyond.
The EU 2030 Framework for climate and energy sets targets for cutting 40% of CO2 emissions, increasing the share of renewable energy to greater than 27% and providing at least 27% energy savings across Europe. The North West Europe (NWE) region is the most industrialised region—as well as the most prolific CO2-emitting region—in Europe. Within this region, the housing sector alone accounts for nearly one-third of all CO2-emissions, as there is currently no great push within this industry to achieve the EU targets. Meanwhile, decreasing household size, changing patterns of regional population density and other social factors have led to a significant decline in demand for large, expensive and energy-inefficient homes; and in turn, this has led to the increased desire for smaller, more affordable energy-efficient living spaces. The main goal of Housing 4.0 Energy, therefore, is to offer people in NWE access to new smaller zero energy/low carbon homes (ZEHs), effectively aiming to reduce home building costs by 25% and carbon emissions by 60%.
