Making the adaptation of the Building sector to climate change possible: a look back at the CSTB Research Day 2024

Scientific community, construction and development stakeholders, communities, etc., more than 600 participants attended this day, in person or remotely. They were able to discover the results of research work, carried out by the CSTB and its partners with a desire for rapid and shared implementation, to concretely support the sector in this major challenge of energy, environmental and societal transitions, in the interest populations and “living well together”.

The CSTB has dedicated one of its four Strategic Research Action Areas to the major challenge that climate change represents for buildings and cities. This includes two projects: mitigation and adaptation. It is this second component that the CSTB highlighted during the 2024 Research Day, organized at the SMABTP headquarters in Paris.

Adaptation to climate change: what are we talking about?

This involves all the steps taken to adjust to the current and expected climate, as well as its consequences, by mitigating its harmful effects. CSTB's research work aims to support the development and deployment of these approaches for buildings, in the service of people.

CSTB Research Day 2024: highlights

Christophe Béchu, Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, who was unable to be present, sent a video to highlight the importance of science and the creation of knowledge to inform and support public policies.

After a welcome from SMABTP, which hosted this 2nd Research Day, Julien Hans, new director of Research and Innovation, presented the CSTB Research roadmap.

The morning was then organized around 3 presentations:

• “Summer thermal comfort: from physiology to regulatory indicator. »
• “Between discomfort and health risk: how vulnerable are homes to future heat waves? »
• “Modeling urban heat islands to support the adaptation of the urban environment.”

And a round table: “Adapting to heat waves: individual and collective strategies”.

It concluded with the intervention of a great witness, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, historian of science, technology and the environment (EHESS/CNRS).

Then, the afternoon provided an opportunity to take stock of knowledge and research around other fundamental subjects regarding adaptation to climate change and its consequences:

• Foresight as an adaptation tool.
• Indoor air quality in 2050.
• Shrinkage-swelling of clay soils.
• The “extreme wind” risk in French cyclonic zones.
• Estimating the needs and costs of action and inaction (round table).

The day was concluded by Etienne Crépon, President of the CSTB:

“Climate change is now unavoidable. Faced with this major development, we will no longer be able, in our daily work, not to integrate in one way or another, each at our level, that it will transform the living conditions of our fellow citizens and that we must take it into account. One of our objectives is to enable stakeholders to have perfect knowledge of the vulnerability of their assets and the sustainability of their performance, particularly in the face of future hazards. So that they can have the necessary information to adapt, accordingly, their ways of designing, renovating, constructing or operating cities and buildings. We need to change the paradigm. »