Europe must provide leadership in energy efficiency

(22 Sep 10)

Europe must provide leadership in energy efficiency. This is the message of eceee, Europe’s largest membership-based NGO solely focused on energy efficiency, when it today presented its views on the forthcoming EU Energy Efficiency Action Plan.

“The new Action Plan needs to reflect an ‘energy efficiency first’ approach in tackling EU’s energy and climate challenges”  said Mr. Nils Borg, Executive Director of eceee, the European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.  

“The Energy Efficiency Action Plan must be ambitious, bold and comprehensive. It is a very important tool to demonstrate EU’s leadership”, Mr Borg said.

eceee points out a number of key issues that should be included in the forthcoming Energy Efficiency Action Plan.

Overall commitment and priority to energy efficiency must be on the top of the agenda, providing adequate resources and giving energy efficiency the place it deserves in the wider energy and climate policy portfolio.

But efficiency is not enough, eceee says. There is a case for shifting our emphasis in energy specifications to progressive efficiency and sufficiency, aiming at achieving absolute reductions in energy use.

The Action Plan also needs to look at how the implementation of and compliance with existing directives initiatives can be improved. “Existing buildings is a key area here”, Mr Borg said. “Buildings represent 40% of the final energy use, but only 1% of the building stock is turned over every year. The challenge is formidable.”

Finally, eceee also points out the need to ensuring that adequate resources are available for better impact: The European Union needs to directly fund as well as act to unlock funding that is available in EU financial institutions and in Member States.

Download the whole position paper here. (pdf)

More eceee views