In the icy shelter of inflation that, like a Malayan drop, holes the pockets of families, one of the maxims that we hear most in the financial environment is: put your money to work. This means that it is no longer worth having certain money saved in a checking account. If that money does not 'work', it loses value. Little by little, drop by drop. Its value is not sustained over time. Something similar happens if we look around us more immediately. More domestic: walls, ceilings, windows, doors. They protect us, they assemble our homes, but in the vast majority of cases not in a sustainable way. Not for the planet, nor for the family economy. Not at all, at the price we think.
When we talk about sustainable homes we mean those that promote the savings of the people who live in them. Of those who work not to erode their pockets, but also the planet. We are talking about a sweet home for the economy, and even more so for the environment, because it puts a stop to the waste of resources that take away years of life from the planet, at least from life as we know it.
When we think about sustainable homes we have to think that nature and savings are two communicating vessels. When we protect the first, we promote the second. If there is one in which this statement is our daily bread, it is the one that holds the title of the most sustainable house in Europe and that makes tangible to those who visit it that a life without a carbon footprint is possible. Although many could imagine it in countries like Finland or Denmark, it is closer than we think. In the municipality of Sant Andreu de la Barca, in Barcelona.
It was designed by Arquima, specialized in industrialized passive architecture with sustainable construction criteria. Its CEO, José Antonio González, is in charge of receiving Elisenda Camps and explaining to her how the idea of building a house without a footprint came about. “We wanted to do a different project, that was special. Ours is passive construction and sustainable construction and the reference seal in passive construction is the German Passive House standard from the Passive House Institute,” he explains. On the other hand, they also attended one of the leading seals in sustainable construction, the Green Building Council (GBCe), known in Spain as 5 Green Leaves.
The result is the first home in Europe with the highest double certification in sustainability and energy efficiency: Passivhaus Premium and 5 GBCe Green Leaves. “The intention was to get the maximum. Obviously, reaching the 5 Green Leaves meant forgetting about a budget ceiling,” he describes. They succeeded, but this house is not a rigid mold, but rather a model to follow to understand to what extent we can conceive healthier homes that, for example, do not need large amounts of energy to power their heating and cooling systems, and when the They need renewable sources, such as solar energy from photovoltaic panels.
González lists three keys that make the difference only in the construction phase: “First, the materials are 100% recyclable, as is the case of the wood with which the entire structure of the building is made. Furthermore, it is an industrialized system, therefore, very little waste is generated on site. And third, all that waste is perfectly separated, controlled and taken to its correct landfills.” Once inside the house, there are five things that the Passiva House philosophy seeks: excellent thermal insulation; high-performance windows and doors; absence of thermal bridges; air tightness; and - no less important - a dual-flow mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.
“It is the lung of the house. Right now air is coming in and air is coming out. You don't notice it, but here the air is being renewed 24 hours a day,” explains the CEO of Arquima to Camps. What is achieved is to keep the house at a comfortable temperature, remaining constant between 22 and 24 degrees, with minimal energy expenditure, which makes it not only the most sustainable but also a rare bird in a country where More than half of the houses were built before the 1980s. Specifically, as highlighted in the GBCe 2022 Country Report on the state of sustainable building emergencies in Spain, around 55% of the Spanish built stock is older to 1980 and 21% are over 50 years old. We are talking about buildings with low performance, that depend on fossil fuels for heating and cooling and that use old technologies and inefficient appliances. That is, they are inefficient.
The potential of the rehabilitation of buildings and self-consumption energy systems is emerging as one of the great solutions to contribute to the change of the energy model and the reduction of CO2 emissions. Something especially urgent when we see that the building sector causes 30% of final energy consumption and 25% of emissions, of which 8% are direct emissions associated with fuel consumption in the residential, commercial and institutional sector. . Together, buildings are responsible for around 40% of the European Union's (EU) total energy consumption and 36% of its greenhouse gas emissions, according to the same GBCe report.
One of the keys that marks a turning point is home automation, which acts as a kind of 'brain' integrating all the elements of the house. “On the one hand, the mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. As in this house there is cooling floor with humidity and temperature sensors, it is important to have the dew point controlled. On the other hand, the solar control of all the blinds is done through a system. All the blinds have their exact orientation placed so that there is always shadow inside. The house continually regulates itself,” describes José Antonio González.
Everything adds up, especially when it comes to subtracting emissions. Elevated to another -industrial- scale what Arquima's house does throughout its four walls, there are many companies conspired to apply the same principles in the nature of their operations. In the case of Naturgy, it has reduced nitrogen oxide emissions, it has also reduced the amount of water needed to generate a unit of electricity and it has also reduced the use of non-combustible materials, among others. Every action counts to mitigate climate change that, for González, is a reality.
“It seemed like it was something that was very far away and it really is a reality. I carry it with concern, but with the peace of mind of seeing how in the last 15 years people's mentality has changed and we are increasingly more aware,” she shares. His daily contribution in the form of a trick that we can all apply to be more sustainable is having a thermostatic faucet: “It should be mandatory in all homes.” In yours, from the outset, the first commandment that your guests must obey no matter what is to never leave the doors open. “If not, that causes the outside temperature and outside humidity to enter and the house stops functioning as it should,” she clarifies. In the end, it is about not losing resources, which is in line with its echo motto: “Build houses that work for you and not work for the houses.”
The company not only compensates for its direct impact on the environment, but also for its communication actions. He has been doing it since 2022 through his project
