UN-Habitat: Housing must not come at expense of environmental sustainability

Housing systems should not be allowed to become even more unaffordable (expensive) in the name of environmental sustainability, Ombretta Tempra, Head of the Land, Housing and Shelter Section of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and leading expert on housing provision, said during the "Intergovernmental Open-Ended Expert Working Group on Adequate Housing for All: Intersessional Meeting on Housing Resilience and Sustainability" organized within the framework of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) held in Baku, Report informs.

"The main challenge is to transform housing systems in a way that benefits both communities and the ecosystem simultaneously, while also enhancing equity, inclusivity, and overall well-being. Therefore, these key aspects must be advanced together, and this is the most critical issue facing the current housing sector. We would like to reframe this topic as part of the core elements of adequate housing provision. It should be clear that environmental sustainability is not an obstacle to the right to adequate housing; on the contrary, it is an essential condition for the full realization of this right. You can see the 7 core elements of adequate housing provision there, and it is quite clear that, for example, when we implement basic services, including water supply, having water and energy-efficient housing not only ensures maximum utilization of existing resources but also actually reduces household running costs. This can be applied to all other aspects as well. Therefore, we want to very strongly contextualize the aspect of environmental sustainability and resilience within the human rights framework related to adequate housing provision," she noted.