Climate, energy, real estate: why it is urgent to connect laws, data and consciences

We are entering a new era. A time when it will no longer be possible to turn a blind eye to the climate impacts of our decisions, particularly in real estate. For decades, we have bought, sold, and renovated without really considering the footprint left behind by each square meter. Today, this comfort of ignorance is no longer an option.

Disasters follow one another—heatwaves, floods, and collapses—each revealing a weakness: the inability to anticipate. Yet, the legislation exists: DPE, CIL, energy audit, carbon footprint, BEGES, CSRD, PPT, DTG, BACS, LOM, renewable energy obligations... Each new law fills a gap, corrects a blind spot, or warns of a risk. But they struggle to produce a leverage effect commensurate with the urgency.

Why? Because they are too often applied like checkboxes, without overall coherence. We add up obligations without constructing a vision. We inform without structuring the information. However, the climate challenge is systemic. It calls for a systemic response.

What's missing isn't just another law, but the ability to connect laws together. To bring a home's energy assessment into dialogue with its renovation strategy, its exposure to natural hazards, its actual consumption, and its carbon trajectory. To create a common language that's understandable to buyers, useful to professionals, and usable by the community.

Some are trying to build this global vision. Not with standards, but with data architecture, interoperability, and smart tools. Because we won't be able to tackle the challenges of the 21st century with the methods of the 20th.

Real estate is at a turning point. It can continue to be an ecological liability, or become a lever for transformation. This requires a cultural shift: moving from a reflex of ownership to a logic of responsibility. It also requires better training, better connections, and better management.

The regulatory foundations are there. So are the warning signs. What we're missing is the glue: the ability to hold it all together, to make the invisible legible, to articulate this puzzle of requirements into a comprehensible and engaging trajectory.

Because each home is more than just an asset: it's a tipping point. And our collective future depends on how we connect them, or not.