A Roadmap for a New Housing Sector by Working Group for Rehabilitation “GTR”
The opportunity to refurbish and upgrade Spanish homes is sizeable, economically feasible – with appropriate regulatory support – and can go a long way towards reforming and refocusing Spain’s buildings sector which is badly impacted by the financial crisis and failing to meet the environmental challenges from Global Change. This working group (GTR) believes that 10 million Spanish primary homes built before 2001 can be transformed into low-energy, low emissions, modern housing delivering benefits to owners and occupants, and creating 110,000-130,000 stable, long-term direct jobs in a vibrant New Housing Sector (“NHS”) from 2012 to 2050.
This report provides the background, structure, methodology, analysis and action plan for Spain to launch and support a new sector (NHS) capable of deploying up to Euro 10 billion a year invested in refurbishing 250-450,000 homes. These budgets will be funded by contributions from private savings, banks, refurbishment providers, ESCOs, energy companies and the State in appropriate proportions, and each receiving commensurate returns, aligned with the energy and CO2 savings, social benefits and modernization upgrades entailed in each individual or collective project.
This report provides the background, framework, methodology and analysis needed to structure an Action Plan which is capable of delivering this new sector, its benefits and transformational impacts on the existing Spanish building sector. Without a new vision and the challenges of the NHS, it is unclear how an existing Spanish building sector – dedicated purely to new buildings construction – can survive. The old business models and practices espoused by today’s construction sector in Spain can be transformed through reorganization along sustainable lines into a new housing sector which meets the environmental challenges of a modern society. The strategic national vision outlined here through the definition of a roadmap which defines the NHS and its Action Plan will redirect the buildings sector to new and sustainable longterm goals of: (1) delivering Spain’s residents’ access to sufficient quality housing; (2) through the creation of public and private economic activity and employment; (3) sustainably compliant within Europe’s 2020-2050 framework, reducing Spain’s ecological and resource footprint and protecting its biodiversity.
REHABiNOVA 