What are the key trends in energy, construction & consumption?

Increasingly, we are seeing people and businesses reclaim energy generation. No longer is energy only sourced from deep underground, through drilling to extract non-renewable fossil fuels, but directly from our balconies, on dancefloors or even in our neighbourhood graveyards.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, higher energy costs and grid instability has pushed the renewable energy transition up the agenda. While large energy providers are slow to transition, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to develop more local, decentralised solutions that put the power back into the hands of the consumer and repurpose previously unutilised spaces. Recent changes to legislation – the so called 'Solar Package I’ – is supporting this trend, making it easier for individuals to install and register solar modules, for example.

This shift is enabling people and businesses to procure their energy more directly from renewable sources, enabling them to reduce costs while also meeting their sustainability goals.

Unlike the last century, when the goal of architects and planners was to design buildings to last forever, there is now a trend towards buildings – or at least components of buildings – that can easily be replaced. These are the buildings and businesses that will be irreplaceable in the future.

That’s not to say that people are favouring materials that need to be replaced more quickly due to lower quality or shorter lifespans. Rather, the world is waking up to the fact that buildings cannot last forever. Either structural components fail or the needs of the community change and the building needs to be repurposed. Modular construction and designing buildings for disassembly, means that when whole components or materials reach the end of their lifespan in one building, they can be reused in another or easily replaced.

Additionally, both modular construction and prefabrication are growing trends that can reduce pollution and waste. This is the result of higher levels of efficiency and control possible at offsite locations where the modules and components are built. Comparably, traditional building sites often lead to a lot of pollution in the surrounding area and create mixed waste which cannot be recycled.  

Trend 4: “Stop taking out the trash: Give your waste a place inside your home”

Waste, by definition, is something unwanted and unusable. The word can conjure unpleasant images and make your nose crinkle. Now, many are realising that we’ve got it wrong all this time; that we should stop taking out the trash and instead see waste as a valuable resource.

The vast majority of waste produced in Germany annually – 340 million tonnes – comes from construction and demolitions. At the EU level, construction and demolition waste accounts for more than one third of all waste. This presents a huge opportunity for architects and entrepreneurs to redefine and repurpose waste, bringing it back into our homes. For example, with whole components constructed from waste, or innovative processes that can recycle traditionally resource- and energy-intensive materials such as concrete.

Even our own waste – that is, human waste – could have more of a place in our homes. Rather than flushing this valuable resource away, compostable toilets are gaining momentum, not just at public sites such as festivals, but in our own bathrooms too.