Nowadays, over 75% of the world’s energy generation is consumed in urban areas alone and more than half of that is consumed in buildings. This has a major impact on our environment and contributes to climate change.
In Africa, where the urban population is increasing at a rate of 3 to 4% annually, the construction industry is playing a major role in energy consumption. The contribution buildings make to climate change and greenhouse gas emission is directly linked to the way they are designed in relation to the local climate, to site specific characteristics, to the embodied energy of the materials used and to the entire construction process. The lack of proper planning and of integration of passive building principles into new buildings is drastically increasing energy consumption in buildings.
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