GreenBuilding – Europe wide renovations of non-residential buildings

Nicole Pillen and Stefanie Grether, German Energy Agency (dena)
Paolo Bertoldi, European Commission DG JRC

Keywords

CO2-emission reduction, existing buildings, renovation, action plan, non-residential buildings, European network, role-model function, new buildings, best-practice, EIE programme

Abstract

In 2004, the European Commission initiated the GreenBuilding Programme, which aims at improving the energy efficiency of already existing as well as new constructed non-residential buildings in Europe on a voluntary basis. Since January 2005, thirteen organisations from ten European countries have been implementing a two-year pilot phase. The GreenBuilding project is supported by the European Commission’s EIE programme. Co-ordinated by the German Energy Agency (dena), all participating countries set up so called National Contact Points (NCPs).

Building owners from different sectors are participating in the programme e.g. public authorities with schools, hospitals or swimming halls, companies from the services and industry sectors with office buildings. For their GreenBuilding application, building owners perform an energy audit at their premises and lay out an action plan. By applying they agree to reduce 25 per cent of primary energy demand of their building (if economically viable) and to report the results of the renovation measures. The NCP assists building owners in this process by providing guidelines for energy saving renovation, and a website in national language with an inventory of best-practices.

Besides reducing energy as well as operational costs, reasons for building owners to join GreenBuilding are:

PR effects for the participating organisations
Practical help from the NCP
Public commitment for environmentally friendly behaviour
Reduction of CO2-emissions

During the pilot phase 52 GreenBuilding Partner status have been awarded leading to a reduction of primary energy of about 90.000 MWh per year. Furthermore about 22.000 tons of CO2 emission savings will be achieved each year.

The paper will describe the main principles of the GreenBuilding Programme before presenting a summary of the refurbishment projects, including the various technologies applied. The paper also discusses possible improvements to the present programme.