The Chaillot Declaration for Buildings
The Buildings and Climate Global Forum, Paris, 7-8 March, 2024, included a session on Sufficiency, led by Ms Marine Girard, Head of Sufficiency Program, Housing and International Cooperation, French Institute for Buildings’ Performance. Among the main messages were:
• A call to action for all governments to prioritize Sufficiency in public policies for decarbonizing the building sector and the necessity of enhancing international cooperation on this matter
• A call to reconsider the built environment growth scenarios by 2050 to ensure compatibility with our limited resources
• The need to work on tailored measures that enable economic convergence
• A call to transform the semantics of embedded carbon into initial carbon (carbon is not stored by buildings: it is indeed emitted upstream of their use).
The Sufficiency concept was subsequently introduced in the Forum’s Ministerial 'Declaration of Chaillot'. Section 5.1 states: “Planning: develop integrated urban planning policies aiming at greater resilience, efficiency, and sufficiency for all buildings, urban spaces, neighbourhoods and inhabitants at all levels (national, regional, and local)”.