The importance of natural resources
Every year, urban overheating and pollution produce three million victims worldwide and heat waves will continue to rise with the exponential increase of city dwellers.
In fact, within the next 40 years, the majority of the world’s population will live in urban areas and architecture will have to collaborate in a decisive way with nature, to cope with the different housing needs of man with sustainable solutions.
Urban resilience can be defined as the capacity of a community, to rebound from a crisis, such as that caused by a tragic natural event.
To increase resilience, we can promote risk mitigation and prevention actions, to reduce the impact of a possible exceptional event. On the other hand, it is possible to prepare strategies for crisis management, with the aim of reducing time and the difficulties of exceptional post-event recovery.
Today, for those who are building up the value of the buildings, the real challenge is to be able to combine existing or new building requirements with those of occupants. The focus is on more scrupulous economic management in order to limit the demand for Energy and environmental impact.
Buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy consumption and play a decisive role in the energy sector. Actually, building energy demand is expected to continue to grow globally over the next decades.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report, «low carbon energy sources meet about 40% of the growth in global energy demand. In some regions, the rapid expansion of wind and solar energy raises fundamental questions about designing energy markets and their ability to ensure adequate investment and long-term reliability».
Therefore, renewable sources also grow, but not everywhere in the same way. Germany is one of the leading countries in this regard, given that the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80-90% by 2050 and to bring renewable sources to cover 60% of the country’s energy consumption.
«In Italy, from 2005 to 2013, greenhouse gas emissions fell by 25% at an average rate of 2.8% per year. Despite this, Gabriele Zanini, head of the Model and technology division of the National Agency for New technologies, Energy and sustainable Economic development (Enea), states that the negative impact of air pollution on Health and ecosystems».
The real estate sector has a major impact on the energy system and the use of natural resources. It can not ignore the environmental damage that the construction industry has caused in recent decades.
It is increasingly important to attribute economic value to environmental resources or, in other words, refer to ecosystems to interpret and reorganize the activities of the construction industry.
Recently, some companies have been trying to empathize with the environmental impact of new buildings by trying to better manage the resources available, building on natural and non-toxic products to ensure greater healthiness in environments.
Energy efficiency plays a key role in the context of sustainable development. In fact, it it contributes to energy saving and cO2 reduction as the main gas responsible for climate change, favoring the psychophysical and mental wellbeing of occupants of the building.