ReHousIn Webinar series 

This three-part event series examined how key pillars of the green transition in the housing sector, nature-based solutions, urban densification, and energy retrofitting/decarbonisation, intersect with housing inequalities across Europe. In fact, while these strategies are central to achieving climate neutrality and environmental resilience, they also reshape housing markets, neighbourhood dynamics, and access to urban spaces and resources. If not carefully designed, they risk reinforcing displacement, energy poverty, land speculation, and socio-spatial exclusion. 

Each event focused on one transformative pathway and critically explored how environmental and climate-oriented housing policies can be implemented in ways that are socially just, economically accessible, and democratically legitimate. Bringing together researchers, policymakers, municipalities, civil society actors, and housing practitioners, the series promoted evidence-based dialogue and actionable solutions for an inclusive green transition in housing. 

Explore the series below! 

While NbS are increasingly embedded in European and global policy frameworks, their implementation can lead to green gentrification and uneven access to environmental benefits. This webinar explores how NbS can be designed and governed to reduce, rather than exacerbate, housing inequalities. This session examines how nature-based solutions (NbS), such as urban greening, green infrastructure, and climate adaptation measures, intersect with housing affordability, displacement risks, and spatial justice.

This webinar is the first of a three-part event series examining how key pillars of the green transition in the housing sector, nature-based solutions, urban densification, and energy retrofitting/decarbonisation, intersect with housing inequalities across Europe. While these strategies are central to achieving climate neutrality and environmental resilience, they also reshape housing markets, neighbourhood dynamics, and access to urban spaces and resources. If not carefully designed, they risk reinforcing displacement, energy poverty, land speculation, and socio-spatial exclusion. 

Learn more about the webinar's case study in the session slides. 

This session addresses the role of densification and compact urban development in responding to housing shortages, climate goals, and land-use pressures. Although densification is promoted as a sustainable planning strategy, it may intensify land speculation, raise housing costs, and reshape neighbourhood demographics. The session investigates how densification policies including vertical expansion, and brownfield regeneration, can advance affordability, inclusion, and climate resilience across diverse urbanisation levels. 

Key Questions include: 

• How does densification influence housing affordability and social mix?
• What safeguards can prevent speculative development and displacement?
• How can rural and medium-sized cities approach compact growth differently from metropolitan areas?
• What regulatory and financial instruments promote equitable densification?

Explore the session slides. 

In line with the NEB Initiative, the discussion highlights transformative pathways toward our built environment that empower vulnerable groups and enhance quality of life, ensuring that the climate-neutral transition in the European housing sector is accessible, acceptable, and affordable for all.

The event – in form of a 2-hour-long hybrid workshop in Brussels – invited participants to critically reflect on evidence-based policy and practice innovations across local, regional, national, and EU governance levels that can accelerate the energy and climate transition in the housing sector, while adhering to principles of inclusivity, beauty and acceptability, and democratic transformation. It thus focuses on actionable insights that support resilient, low-carbon, and socially just transformative housing pathways.

Learn more about the session.