Buildings • Real estate players are re-examining their foundations to adapt to climate change
The layout and composition of new buildings need to adapt and be revised to stand up to anticipated weather events and geopolitical pressure. Both the renovation of existing buildings and the construction of future property will need to combine energy efficiency with resistance to climate impacts.
Between calls for energy sufficiency, geopolitical pressure on the energy supply, and increasingly intense weather events, the building sector needs to adapt. Exposure to extreme climate episodes is bringing down the value of real estate. The layout, design and composition of new buildings therefore need to be revised to stand up to anticipated weather events. Both the renovation of existing buildings and the construction of future property will need to combine energy efficiency with resistance to climate impacts. To meet this challenge, the focus is on integrating adaptation into building codes, improving architecture, and updating the insurance sector.
- Human & financial costs and emissions are escalating due to the impact of climate change on infrastructure
- The fast-changing climate shakes the foundations of the building sector
- Building resilience established right from the design phase
- Faced with climate change, the insurance sector goes back to the drawing board
To date, few building and renovation codes integrate adaptation, despite the increased impacts of climate change causing more numerous material damages and loss of human lives. Countries like Japan and the United States were early to undertake research to anticipate the natural disasters that have historically impacted them. Nevertheless, due to climate change, such episodes are likely to intensify in these countries and become more common in other countries. This calls for greater integration of mitigation and adaptation measures, which have not been considered in technologies that only focus on building resilience. Insurance can be an important lever to tackle impacts that have already occurred, although with the increased number of events, the sector is faced with the need to adapt. This is because adaptation is related to the level of risks and therefore to the insurance sector’s capacity to operate on a model that considers the increase in risks and then better distributes them.