In the European Union, 220 million building units, or 85% of the building stock were built before 2001 and 9 out of 10 of the buildings that exist today will still be here by 2050. These buildings are not energy-efficient (represent 40% of total energy consumption) and are carbon-intensive (36% of GHG emissions from energy).

The European Union has set itself a GHG emission reduction target of 55% by 2030. This requires a reduction of GHG emissions from buildings by 60% and a reduction of final energy consumption by 14%. To achieve these targets, 35 million building units need to be renovated by 2030. It is important to emphasize that buildings with a long durability and high resilience, like concrete-based ones, are particularly useful in this respect because they can be renovated instead of having to be demolished and reconstructed with much higher impacts and costs in the majority of cases.