ABSTRACT
Buildings have a disproportionate impact on climate change and the environment due to their high energy and resource consumption, their significant greenhouse gas emissions, and vast amounts of construction and demolition waste they produce. With people spending most of their time indoors, buildings are also critical for population health, affecting our exposure to climate and environmental hazards. However, the environmental impacts and exposures of buildings and people in them are not shared equally: there exist large differences in the quality of homes across socioeconomic groups – even within the same city. This chapter examines evidence from high-income countries, describing current inequities in housing impacts on climate and environment, exposure to climate hazards, and vulnerability to negative health or social impacts from these hazards. Using this evidence, we illustrate how housing is a matter of climate injustice, with stark contrasts in the housing that contributes to the climate and the environmental emergency, and those most exposed to and vulnerable to its effects. While it is clear that architects have a critical role in environmental sustainability, mitigating climate change via efficient design and retrofit of the housing stock, we argue that designing zero carbon, climate resilient buildings is also critical for climate and social justice and that failure to do so risks entrenching future inequalities. There are opportunities to reduce emissions and waste from buildings while adapting for future climates and providing co-benefits for population health and equity. However, facing a global climate emergency, there is a need for greater moral leadership and agency within the architecture and built environment professions to support this environmentally and socially sustainable transformation.
