Globally, a move towards sustainable housing is growing. In Europe, efforts to move to greener homes hope to combat rising energy costs and be better for the planet. But 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions still come from the real estate sector.
In Australia, off-grid electric homes are becoming more common. A recent report by the University of New South Wales is pushing the built environment industry to reach net zero by 2040, and according to a 2024 study by Domain, energy-efficient real estate is attracting more interest than conventional homes.
Notes:
I love seeing attention paid to more sustainable building and housing options, and I think the photos in these sorts of articles are gorgeous—I would love to live in such a place.
That said, I also can’t help but think, every single time, that these homes remain out of reach for the majority of people, and I’d love to see more application of effort and investment in figuring out inexpensive approaches that achieve similar outcomes (or even lesser outcomes that would be scaled-up because of wider implementation).
These sorts of things do tend to trickle-down to the rest of the market eventually, if they become popular enough at the high-end, but there’s something really lovely about sustainable, elegant solutions that also don’t cost a fortune (and thus, mainly existing in ad hoc situations, rather than being applied broadly).
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