Two Weeks Left for One Million Votes
January 31 is the deadline for HouseEurope!, a registered nonprofit aimed at incentivizing renovation over demolition and new construction, to gain one million signatures as a European Citizens’ Initiative. If successful, the initiative will advance to the European Commission and be considered for new legislation. An email from the nonprofit this week signals that there is a way to go—yet they are not discouraged.
Although HouseEurope! did not reveal how many signatures they have to date, yesterday's email started deflatedly: “It can feel daunting to look at the numbers right now and wonder if we’ll make it in time.” One million signatures is certainly a lot, but it is a small percentage of the EU residents eligible to sign, and one year is a long time to drum up support. The biggest challenge for the nonprofit would seem to be its subject: making the wider public aware of—much less care about—how much carbon is emitted through demolition and new construction versus renovation and reuse.
A few organizations have helped make this European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) known along the way. A month and a half before the January 31, 2025, launch of HouseEurope!, the Canadian Centre for Architecture released To Build Law, a 50-minute documentary and second installment in CCA's “Groundwork” series. The documentary, now free to watch online in full, focuses on HouseEurope! and some of the people behind it, including architects Arno Brandlhuber and Olaf Grawert (both from b+ and its s+ offshoot) and activist Alina Kolar. “Architects, like other people, are frustrated with government inaction over climate change,” we wrote in our review of the film, “and To Build Law captures one attempt at overcoming that frustration.”
We did our part again, in March 2025, with an article looking more deeply at how the ECI works and pointing people to the HouseEurope! website. Then, in June, HouseEurope! won the 2025 OBEL Award. Clearly, the jury and organizers felt a responsibility in using the award to draw attention to the initiative and help it gain more votes: “With OBEL’s support and endorsement, HouseEurope! is building broad momentum to change the very fundamentals of what gets built—and how. … The OBEL Jury believes that recognizing and awarding HouseEurope! sends a strong message to the profession and the next generation of architects: you have a voice, and the power to reshape the structures limiting our field.”
With support from these organizations and numerous media outlets, one would have expected better news this week. How then is the nonprofit feeling both “daunting” and “not discouraged.” One reason is that, like an online auction entering its final moments, many successful ECIs had the biggest momentum in their final days. “Their signature counts were near 200,000 with one week left,” Tuesday's HouseEurope! email reads. “The next day, they hit 400,000 signatures. Then 500,000. With two days remaining, they passed 850K, and crossed the threshold to 1,000,000+ signatures on the final day of the ECI.”
With two weeks left, HouseEurope! has around 65,000 signatures, according to the ECI page on the EU website, with most of the signatures coming from Germany, France, and Spain among the 27 eligible European countries. Although one can see why the nonprofit left this number out of this week's push, it is all the more reason to visit the EU website to sign the ECI and forward the link to friends and followers.