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Brussels, 16 December 2025: The first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan rightly underscores the relation between the energy efficiency, resilience and affordability of housing.
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Glass for Europe welcomes and supports this comprehensive initiative that recognises the need to address Europe’s housing crisis by accelerating supply, boosting investment, and improving sustainability and quality across the EU’s building stock.
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Speaking on the publication of the Plan, Adrien Carton, Sustainable Construction & Industrial Policy Manager stated:
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“Europe cannot address housing affordability without improving the performance of the buildings people live in. High-efficiency glazing is essential to lowering energy demand, improving comfort and resilience, reducing household bills and enhancing long-term value. The flat glass industry is now urging EU institutions and Member States to integrate high-performance glazing solutions as a core enabler of affordable and energy-efficient housing.”
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The flat glass industry strongly concurs to the Plan’s measures to accelerate renovation, scale up innovation in construction, and enhance access to financing. In particular, the sector welcomes:
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- The creation of Partnerships for Better Homes and the development of one-stop-shops that help households navigate renovation solutions. These mechanisms can greatly facilitate the uptake of energy-efficient glazing in both residential renovation and district-level refurbishment projects.
- Support for repurposing and renovating existing buildings. Addressing Europe’s large stock of inefficient homes will not be possible without systematically upgrading windows, glazing and façades to modern performance standards.
- The European Strategy for Housing Construction, which rightly promotes industrialised, low-carbon and innovative construction methods. Flat glass manufacturers are at the forefront of producing next-generation glazing products that reduce operational energy use and enable climate-resilient building design.
- The mobilisation of public and private investment, including through the new Pan-European Investment Platform. Cost-effective energy-saving measures such as window replacement should be prioritised to maximise social return on investment by quickly lowering household energy expenditure.
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As outlined in the Plan, a part of the solution lies in the full and effective implementation of existing legislation such as the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and its associated guidance. The forthcoming Simplification Housing Package must not roll back on key EPBD provisions that support building renovations and improved energy efficiency.
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As policymakers, Member States and local authorities begin implementing the Affordable Housing Plan, Glass for Europe stands ready to contribute technical expertise and practical solutions, for instance through the new Europe Housing Alliance, to ensure that Europe’s pathway to affordable housing is also a pathway to energy efficiency and climate resilience.
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Adrien Carton, Sustainable Construction & Industrial Policy Manager
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Glass for Europe is the trade association for Europe’s flat glass sector. Flat glass is the material that goes into a variety of end products, primarily in windows and facades for buildings, windscreens and windows for automotive and transport as well as solar energy equipment, furniture and appliances. Glass for Europe brings together multinational firms and thousands of SMEs across Europe, to represent the entire building glass value-chain. It is composed of flat glass manufacturers, AGC Glass Europe, Guardian, NSG-Group, Saint-Gobain Glass, Şişecam and works in association with national partners gathering thousands of building glass processors and transformers all over Europe.
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