Early last week, the European Commission and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe announced the 40 shortlisted projects of the EU Mies Award, a prize that commends excellence in architecture, highlighting its contribution to sustainable development. In this context, and two years after the European Parliament voted to support the Green Deal, we review the steps taken by the EU in 2021 towards achieving its sustainability goals and shaping a resilient built environment.
In July 2021, the European Commission adopted a package of proposals to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. These measures comprised increasing renewable energy production and the requirement to renovate 3% of the existing building stock each year to increase energy efficiency. The latter is supposed to create 160,000 jobs within the construction sector. EU is also working on expanding its offshore renewable energy capabilities.
In December, the European Commission adopted several proposals that put the transport sector on track for a 90% reduction in carbon emissions through an increase in rail transportation encouraging long-distance and cross-border rail travel, the roll-out of charging points for electric vehicles and the development of multimodality. The set of proposals translates sustainable urban mobility into a priority across the bloc.
High-quality architecture is a cornerstone of the European Commission's approach to sustainability. In redefining European architects' role as caregivers, architecture contributes to the European Green deal and its cultural component: the "New European Bauhaus - European Union Commissioner Mrs Mariya Gabriel in the announcement of the EUMies Award shortlist.
On January 18 2022, the European Commission launched the second edition of its New European Bauhaus program. Inaugurated in 2020, the initiative is designed to transform the built environment into a more sustainable one with higher social value. The project, shaped through an unprecedented co-design process, calls for architects, students, specialists, and citizens to share ideas, examples and challenges to help define the movement's concrete steps. The winners of this first edition were announced in September 2021 and illustrate the program's values of sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion.
