Non-technical summary

European Union building policy is currently grappling with interlinked challenges, including persistent housing crises, energy poverty, and significant resource consumption. Resolving these issues requires more than technological efficiency; sufficiency offers a complementary strategy by reducing resource consumption to what is necessary while ensuring decent living standards. This study assesses the integration of sufficiency into EU policies, identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement within the building sector.

Technical summary

Buildings account for a large portion of the EU’s environmental impact, yet access to living space remains highly unequal. Technological innovation alone may not solve this social-ecological challenge. This investigation into EU policies for the built environment uses content analysis based on a conceptual framework with four dimensions: reduced consumption, environmental sustainability, behavioural and lifestyle change, and equitable welfare. Findings indicate that while the EU policy mix incorporates all dimensions, social aspects are less acknowledged. Most measures remain technical, highlighting the potential for more ambitious approaches.

Introduction

The built environment is a crucial provisioning system, but it is also a significant driver of global resource consumption. In the EU, buildings were responsible for approximately one-third of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and material consumption in 2022, while contributing 42% of annual energy consumption. Access to living space is unequal, with many Europeans facing overcrowded or unaffordable housing. The second von der Leyen Commission addressed this by presenting an Affordable Housing Plan in late 2025. Sufficiency approaches explore how much resource consumption is needed to provide equitable welfare for all within planetary boundaries.

Literature review

Sufficiency is defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as avoiding the demand for materials, energy, land, and water while delivering a decent living standard for all. It focuses on tackling the root causes of environmental impacts and provisioning a ‘social floor’ of enough resources for basic needs. In the context of buildings, sufficiency measures include reducing living space per capita, sharing spaces, and prioritising the renovation of existing stock over new construction. Research indicates that a reduction in per-capita living space in the EU could yield substantial energy savings for space heating, though rebound effects often offset efficiency gains.

Methods

The study used a combined top-down and bottom-up approach to delineate the policy mix, starting with the European Green Deal (EGD). The researchers mapped 16 EU policies adopted or amended between December 2019 and July 2025, including five strategies, four directives, and seven regulations. Content analysis was applied to rank how strongly these policies acknowledged four dimensions of sufficiency: reduced consumption, environmental sustainability, behavioural change, and equitable welfare. Policies were ranked from 0 (no mention) to 3 (core feature).

Results

The analysis of the 16 policies revealed that physical sufficiency dimensions—reduced consumption and environmental sustainability—achieved higher average ranks than social dimensions. Reduced consumption was a core feature (rank 3) in 50% of the policies, such as the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which include binding targets for absolute energy reduction. Environmental sustainability was a core feature in 38% of policies, focusing on decarbonisation and renewables.

In contrast, social dimensions like behavioural change and equitable welfare displayed larger shares of policies with the lowest rank. Behavioural change was a core feature in only 6% of policies, specifically the Emissions Trading System 2 (ETS 2) through its carbon pricing mechanism. Equitable welfare was a core feature in 25% of the policies, primarily through financial support for vulnerable households to combat energy poverty. Funding instruments generally scored highest on equitable welfare but lowest on behavioural change.

Discussion

While many policies address sufficiency, ‘hard’ measures like explicit caps on consumption remain rare. Most measures are technical, aiming at relative reductions through efficiency or circularity rather than absolute limits. There is significant scope for EU policymakers to adopt more ambitious actions, such as introducing sufficiency-weighted funding or improving data on building use and living conditions. The current policy mix exhibits an uneven distribution of sufficiency dimensions, partly due to the division of competences between the EU and Member States, where social measures often require local tailoring.

Conclusions

Sufficiency offers a guiding principle to reduce absolute consumption in the face of systemic environmental challenges. Current EU building policies concentrate on physical dimensions, but there is a lack of integration regarding social issues like housing. The researchers recommend that the EU do more to reduce the building sector’s use of resources by prioritising the retrofitting and repurposing of existing buildings over new construction. Future policies should go beyond quick technological fixes to address multiple categories of environmental impact and improve affordability and equitable access.