ONV LAW is proud to announce that Alina Bilan, Partner at ONV LAW and President of the Association for Sustainable Local Development (ARDLD), launched the project "Building Our Sustainable Future" earlier this month, to inform and empower the academic community, public and private sector professionals, regarding the impact of the built environment on our lives in the context of global sustainable development goals.

The built environment - the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity - must be understood as much more than a collection of buildings. It encompasses buildings, public spaces, parks, and other designed areas, as well as historical buildings and monuments, urban infrastructure, and any type of infrastructure necessary for the general needs of society. This environment impacts the natural world and climate change, while also being an essential factor for quality of life.

The built environment is responsible for a significant portion of our energy and resource consumption: 50% of all extracted materials, 30% of water consumption, 40% of energy consumption, and 36% of CO2 emissions during the usage phase. At the same time, the embodied carbon in the built environment has been estimated to account for 10-12% of total carbon emissions in several EU member states.

The "Building our Sustainable Future” project provides an opportunity to understand the highly complex issues of the built environment and the direct connection between the sustainability of the built environment and achieving the targets set by the Global Sustainable Development Goals.

This year, conferences were organized in Bucharest and Iași, attended by representatives from the Polytechnic Universities in both cities, private sector companies, and local public authorities. The online platform www.sustainablebuilding.ro serves as an essential resource for anyone seeking more information.

The "Building Our Sustainable Future" project was launched in cooperation with the Romanian Government. ONV LAW is a partner in this project, and we are happy to support our colleague Alina Bilan and ARDLD in this important initiative. We are dedicated to support private and public companies who want to develop sustainable projects as ESG issues have become a critical focus for management and boards across all industries.

Companies face increasing demands and regulatory expectations from stakeholders – including shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, regulators, and the broader community. While sustainable technologies and equipment play a crucial role in creating a sustainable built environment, the importance of public policy tools and regulatory frameworks in sustainable construction cannot be overlooked.

Partner Alina Bilan

Alina Bilan has been a lawyer since 2005, and became an expert in sustainable development and ARDLD President in the year 2018. She is a member of the Bucharest Bar, specializing in administrative law, public procurement, construction and public utility services.

Out of passion for the environment and sustainability, Alina has become an expert in sustainable development and is involved as a consultant in projects that involve sustainable development strategies or public environmental policies, being a graduate of a master' s degree in environmental studies and sustainable development within SNSPA.

She is currently a PhD candidate in public policy for sustainable development at the SNSPA Doctoral School in the field of green public procurement. Alina is a partner in the law firm ONV LAW where she coordinates the practice of public procurement, concessions, PPP, administrative law, construction and urbanism alongside public utility services. She currently participates as a speaker in various conferences and seminars on public procurement, green public procurement and sustainable development. She recently published a study on green public procurement in Romania in a volume of Springer Nature about public policy analysis entitled "Europeanization of Environmental Policies and their Limitations".