Few housing companies are building for the heat waves of the future

SVT Nyheter, together with the magazine Hem och hyra, has been in contact with over 50 municipal housing companies in Skåne, Halland, Kronoberg and Kalmar counties, and asked if they are adapting their apartments for a future with more heat waves and an increased cooling need for housing.

The heat wave in the summer of 2018 is described by many municipal housing companies that SVT spoke to as a wake-up call, calculations from the Public Health Agency show an excess mortality that summer, especially among the elderly in the population.

But despite this, more than half of the companies say that they do not make any adjustments in their construction projects or renovations to meet the heat of the future.

"Working with conversion"

- We have mostly worked with the adjustment part, but next year will develop a plan to adapt to the climate, among other things to handle heat waves, says Ida-Sara Andrén, sustainability strategist at Kalmarhem.

Several municipalities are making partial adjustments - such as the increasing use of cooling building materials, sun protection windows, shading plants or better ventilation.

But only three of the companies say that they work actively with several different methods - both in new construction and when they renovate.

These are Halmstad, Tingsryd and Lund.

"The question comes big"

The picture is confirmed by researchers that SVT spoke to and the organization Sweden's public benefit.

Many municipal housing companies are part of Allmännyttan's climate initiative where they help each other to reduce their climate impact and make climate adaptations to reduce the effects of, for example, droughts and floods.

But in the matter of adapting buildings to the heat waves of the future, they have not come as far.

- We have no guidelines about it, but have started to spread information about trees and green roofs as a way to bring down temperatures in buildings.

The question comes big, it is definitely on the agenda and is in demand by our members, says Patrizia Finessi environmental expert at Sweden's public utility.

See more about the review in the clip above.