ECOS | Environmental Coalition on Standards

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Clean energy

Sustainable buildings & construction products

Buildings are at the core of our lives. Yet, creating and maintaining buildings takes a huge toll on our limited natural resources. In the EU, the production of building materials emits 250 million tonnes of CO2 annually – equivalent to flying around the world 38 million times. It takes another 950 million tonnes to provide lighting, cooking, heating, and cooling. Our aim is to make a sustainable built environment a reality. We develop international standards and push for legislation that ensures circular, low-carbon building materials and creates buildings that fit planetary boundaries.

What we are working on

  • We push for an ambitious EU Strategy for a Sustainable Built Environment and Construction Products Regulation.
  • We advocate clean heating and cooling, with a phase-out of fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy sources.
  • ECOS shapes standards to promote transparency on environmental impacts and make sustainable materials the default.
  • We call for mandatory green public procurement of construction products.

 

Who we work with

Alliances and campaigns

Related news

  • Buildings are for people: aligning social and environmental lifecycle assessments

    Buildings are where people live, work, learn, and heal. Yet European housing and construction policy defaults to metrics that obscure this: costs per square metre, emissions per floor area, units delivered per year. The European Affordable Housing Plan (EAHP) — and the simplification work underway — is an opportunity to change this logic and put the function a building serves for its users, and the resources it consumes over its lifetime, at the centre of how housing quality is defined, measured, and funded. Read on to learn how social lifecycle assessment (sLCA) and environmental LCA (eLCA), underpinned by strong European standards like EN 16309 on the social performance of buildings, can make this shift happen.

  • From the ground up: decarbonising infrastructure and buildings in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa

    Research shows that by 2050, Africa's population will increase by about 60%. Two-thirds of the infrastructure and buildings required are yet to be built, ushering in an unprecedented wave of construction—and potentially, pollution.

  • Call for experts – low-carbon cement and concrete in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa

    ECOS is looking for experts to help us secure an ambitious and effective decarbonisation pathway for cement and concrete value chains in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.

Contact person
Joren Verschaeve
Senior Programme Manager joren.verschaeve@ecostandard.org
Thomas Trevisan
Programme Manager thomas.trevisan@ecostandard.org

ECOS is co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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