Renovation is key to meet climate targets – BPIE report

(eceee news, 3 Dec 2019) A new report by BPIE – Building renovation in the Clean Energy Package: implications at local, national and EU levels – analyses some of the most important changes that will influence building renovation policy in the coming decades. Renovation is key to meet climate targets, the report concludes.

The buildings sector is responsible for about 36% of greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of energy consumption in Europe, and 97% of the existing building stock is inefficient, BPIE writes. The Clean energy package addresses some of the existing regulatory gaps in building legislation and tries to create a supporting framework for decarbonising the building sector.

The report analyses some of the most important changes brought by legislation

of the Clean energy package: the EPBD (Energy Performance of Building Directive), the EED (Energy Efficiency Directive), the RED (Renewable Energy Directive) and the GOV (Governance Regulation). It also identifies the specific role for local, national and European actors in order to implement the legislation and develop ambitious renovation policies in line with the EU 2030 and 2050 targets.

The report is part of the EU project Build Upon, which aims to empower cities across Europe to join forces with national governments and industry to decarbonise their existing building stock by 2050.

BUILD UPON was initially started in 2015 and created a community of stakeholders of over 2,000 diverse organisations. Its first phase resulted in key recommendations that national renovation strategies should focus on to facilitate action at a local city level.

BUILD UPON2 aims to engage with European cities to design and facilitate local action to implement national building renovation strategies required by the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). Activities will be implemented across eight European countries with Green Building Council España as lead facilitator-

The following eight pilot cities will actively be involved in the project:

  • Velika Gorica, Croatia
  • Budaörs, Hungary
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Padova, Italy
  • Wroclaw, Poland
  • Madrid, Spain
  • Eskişehir, Turkey
  • Leeds, UK

The overall aim of the project is to have at least 10 cities publicly commit to establish strategies to decarbonise their building stock by 2050.