BUILDING OUR FUTURE By 2050, this planet will be home to another two billion human beings. To accommodate us all, we are going to need to build more housing and more infrastructure. It has been calculated that the equivalent of a city the size of Paris (105 km2) will crop up every day, particularly in the countries of the Global South1. Yet the housing challenge will be just as great in Western countries. To meet the demands of its current population, the United States would need to build the equivalent of three years’ worth of houses and apartments in the space of a single year. In the United Kingdom alone, 340,000 homes would need to be built every year until 2031 just to address the existing shortfall. The construction sector is responsible for 36% of the world’s energy consumption, 37% of greenhouse gas emissions, 40% of solid waste production, and 50% of natural resource use 2. So, we face an environmental, economic, and societal challenge that forces us to address a key issue: how to renovate and build faster and cheaper but, above all, more sustainably? 1. The term "Global South" designates countries classified by the World Bank as having a low or average income and being located in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Caribbean. 2. World Green Building Council. SAINT-GOBAIN 6
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