Global crisis
Our world has created and is facing numerous crises on many levels and conventional building is one of the causes of it: “Buildings contribute to approximately a third of U.S. emissions and 40% of global emissions, so we cannot meet consensus climate targets without transforming the buildings sector” United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change: Summary for Policymakers
As much as climate change being the main trigger to the need for building more naturally and sustainably, many other global issues can find solutions within Natural building:
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- Destruction of natural habitats: the extraction of raw materials requires much less processing and can be extracted sustainably, thus direct impact on the environment is less harmful.
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- Health of builders and homeowners: as Natural building finds its sense using non toxic materials the risks taken by workers whilst manipulating materials is reduced (in comparison with conventional building where many resources are found to be carcinogenic) as much as homeowners while living inside such houses
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- Housing crisis: acute shortage of housing, particularly social and genuinely affordable housing, has led to spiraling rents and house prices across the country. Many young people and families on low to middle incomes struggle to afford to rent or buy a decent home. The concept of Natural building has been developed in the way that it also includes means and solutions for affordable houses in the sense of energy consumption and hosting capacity.
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- Accessible knowledge/ Traditional knowledge:
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- Inclusive process: Natural building movement also addresses ethical and gender questions as this field has been for long seen as a “man field”, many workshops and training are open or organized by women, children friendly and so forth. Of course building is still a skill that requires knowledge and precision for safety reasons!!