Populations across Europe are ageing rapidly. Is that a problem? Only if we don’t manage to increase the number of years spent in good health. Work carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO) on age-friendly environments makes it very clear that adapting our housing has incredible potential to promote independent and healthy lives at all ages1. This finding is all the more pertinent that the current European housing stock is not in a good state to support independent living across people’s life course. Even very basic needs are going unmet: the WHO1 notes that 20% of European citizens live in housing with insufficient protection against excessive heat during summer, while 13% report that their housing was not comfortably warm during winter. Without specific and sustained policy action, this will not change. According to Renovate Europe, annual renovation rates lie between 0,4% and 1,2%, much too slow to achieve the proposed vision in 2040.