Overheating Britain: Can our buildings cope?
Posted on: 3 July, 2025
By Jordan Turner
Lecturer
The UK Green Building Council’s new ‘Climate Resilience Roadmap‘ pulls no punches: Britain’s built environment is already “facing an urgent reality” when it comes to climate hazards, and overheating is in the top 5. In this opinion piece, University of the Built Environment lecturer Jordan Turner explores why the sector’s focus must now expand from energy efficiency to true climate resilience – and calls for practical steps to keep people safe and comfortable in a warming world.
Cold-climate design in a warming UK
It has long been a problem that UK buildings are not accustomed to hot temperatures. With a lot of focus on insulating buildings and having energy efficiency in mind, it means the majority of our buildings are kept to trap heat in. Consequently, we see such results as schools, care homes, offices and our own homes, becoming very uncomfortable.
Less than 5% of UK homes have air conditioning installed compared with the US, which has 90% installations. There is no doubt at all that the UK is getting warmer temperatures with record temperatures seen in recent years but also, more consistent ‘hotter days’ that UK buildings just simply are not prepared for.
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Climate-resilient buildings call ‘nothing new’
The talks of solar shading and building more climate-resilient buildings is nothing new, but rather something that appears to get brought up time and time again, yet the same conversations are had years later. Whilst energy efficiency is welcomed and an important factor, instead of focusing on some of the measures which are being implemented into new buildings, there should perhaps be a stronger focus on resilience and making buildings comfortable for everyone, no matter who the intended occupier is.
There should be a focus on social sustainability and subsequently, the health and wellbeing of individuals. It is perhaps time that every single building started to integrate air conditioning units within them to cool the building when needed. Furthermore, the integration of solar glass would be a welcomed idea, not only does it offer shading and therefore a cooler building, but there is the added benefit of electricity generation to be gained from this to and the use of this, in my opinion, needs to be accelerated.
Health and wellbeing in a time of climate change
Whilst vulnerable people need to be protected against climate change, there is the call that every single individual needs to be protected and their health and wellbeing be promoted. This can only be done if the Government goes ‘back to basics’ and, instead of being narrow focused, instead starts to put some deep attention into the three sustainability pillars as a whole, rather than just focusing one or two whilst sacrificing another – which is often the case.
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