Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Buildings key to achieving Europe’s climate goals

Edoardo Concari Coppola 15th December 2021

There are fears the revised directive on energy performance due from the European Commission will not be adequate to the task.

buildings,climate,decarbonise,energy performance,directive
All new buildings should be designed to rely exclusively on renewable energy (Slavun/shutterstock.com)

The revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), expected from the European Commission today, as part of the Fit for 55 package, is a legislative milestone which cannot go under the radar.

In the bloc’s effort to achieve climate neutrality and fulfil its international climate commitments, the building sector has a systemic role to play. The EPBD is the main policy instrument regulating buildings across the European Union.

Since its first adoption in 2002, the legislation has been key to improving the energy performance of the European building stock, by fostering energy efficiency and aiming at long-term decarbonisation. But given the need to take decisive action in this decade to tackle the climate emergency, the time has come for a comprehensive revision, to fill gaps and raise ambition.  

Profound transformations are urgently needed to decarbonise buildings, ensuring that the sector contributes to the efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C. Indeed, the homes and offices which surround us today are among the main culprits of the climate crisis, accounting for around 40 per cent of all energy consumed and 36 per cent of energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions in the EU.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

More than seven out of ten buildings are still extremely wasteful—mainly due to poor thermal insulation and inefficient, fossil fuel-based heating systems—having been built before most energy-performance regulations emerged in the 1990s. It is estimated that up to 90 per cent of existing buildings will still be in use in 2050, when the EU aims to be climate-neutral.

Deep renovation

The failure to harness the vast energy-saving potential of this sector is mainly due to the lack of measures triggering retrofitting at the rate and depth needed. Energy savings in buildings are maximised through deep renovation, which improves thermal integrity and thus lowers energy need and the size of heating equipment required. Yet most refurbishments in the EU do not lead to any energy savings at all, while only around 0.2 per cent result in a substantial cut in final energy demand.

It’s not much better, however, with new buildings. Current construction rules are far from perfect, based on inadequate performance levels and allowing for continued installation of fossil-fuel-based heating. Moreover, the legal framework lacks requirements to promote sustainable materials, resource efficiency and a more circular approach, with a view to decarbonising buildings across the whole life-cycle.

Accelerating the transformation of EU buildings is not only a matter of environmental urgency but would also bring substantial social benefits. Inefficient and polluting homes are a root cause of energy poverty, a social emergency looming over more than 96 million people in the EU.

With inadequate housing linked to 100,000 premature deaths annually, and generating an economic burden of over €194 billion per year in public-health costs, securing better and healthier living conditions for all households must be top of any meaningful political agenda. At this moment of soaring energy prices across the EU, deep building renovation coupled with fully renewable heating is also the safest strategy to limit households’ exposure to price volatility and counteract future spikes.

Being highly labour-intensive, construction and renovation could enable the creation of countless new jobs, favouring recovery and facilitating the transition towards green, sustainable employment. By 2030 an additional 160,000 jobs could be created across the EU by investing in energy efficiency. Depending on the level of investment, enhanced building renovation could generate up to 1,480,000 employment opportunities.

No time to lose

There is thus no time to lose in crafting a buildings directive matching the climate ambition needed, notably via measures to ramp up deep renovation rates to at least 3 per cent per year ahead of 2030.

As a first step, this implies coming up with a common legal definition of deep renovation, absent from the EU framework. In line with a recent experts’ analysis, an ambitious definition should look at minimising buildings’ energy needs—implying at least 75 per cent energy savings—while ensuring that residual low-energy demand is covered entirely by renewables at the end of the process.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Following the example of an increasing number of member states, mandatory minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for all existing buildings—with a timeline of milestones for energy-performance levels to be achieved by the whole stock—would trigger the required wave of building renovation. The goal should be to achieve a highly energy-efficient, sustainable and fully renewable-based building sector to help reach climate neutrality in line with the Paris Agreement.

Linking MEPS to deep renovation would allow prioritisation of refurbishments in one stage, reducing hurdles for buildings’ occupants as well as overall final costs. Through improvement of the worst-performing buildings first MEPS would help lift households out of energy poverty, together with a supportive framework that provides appropriate funding and assistance to all those in need with a view to preserving housing affordability.

Reliable data

Such policies would need to be underpinned by up-to-date, reliable and complete data on the performance of the EU building stock. A major challenge in this regard is the low diffusion of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) across member states.

EPCs are one of the most distinctive tools introduced by the current EPBD, providing information on the energy performance of a building, alongside recommendations on how to improve it. But these certificates are only issued when a building is built or put up for sale or rent and in many countries less than 10 per cent of the stock is covered. Having EPCs for all buildings would ensure an accurate overview of the status of the EU building sector in its entirety.

Future-proofing construction is equally important. The buildings constructed today will stand for many decades, so it is imperative they are built in line with a climate-neutral future. This means buildings that are highly energy-efficient and supplied exclusively by renewables. A wide array of renewable-energy sources are already available and should be made integral to all constructions—including renewable electricity that powers electric heat pumps, capturing ambient and geothermal heat, as well as solar thermal heat and renewable district-heating systems.

At the same time, overall environmental impact should be minimised through sustainable use of materials and construction practices to reduce ‘embodied’ emissions. Promoting low carbon, nature-based or secondary raw materials should be the rule, not the exception.

Political will

The EPBD revision is the opportunity we have to turn all these nice words into action. The solutions are there and the objective is clear—clean, sustainable and healthy buildings for all.

Political will is needed to kickstart the transformation of the building sector. It must not be found wanting.

Edoardo Concari Coppola
Edoardo Concari Coppola

Edoardo Concari Coppola is buildings policy co-ordinator at Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe. His work focuses on  implementation of the European Commission’s Renovation Wave strategy, including  revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Fit for 55 legislative package.

You are here: Home / Ecology / Buildings key to achieving Europe’s climate goals

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

Russia,journalists,Ukraine,target Ukraine: journalists in Russia’s sightsKelly Bjorkland and Simon Smith
European Union,enlargement,Balkans EU enlargement—back to the futureEmilija Tudzarovska
European Health Data Space,EHDS,Big Tech Fostering public research or boosting Big Tech?Philip Freeman and Jan Willem Goudriaan
migrant workers,non-EU Non-EU migrant workers—the ties that bindLilana Keith
ECB,European Central Bank,deposit facility How the ECB’s ‘deposit facility’ subsidises banksDavid Hollanders

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: housing

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s senior research manager, Hans Dubois, about the issues that feed into housing insecurity in Europe and the actions that need to be taken to address them. Together, they analyse findings from Eurofound’s recent Unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe report, which presents data from Eurofound’s Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents on various indicators of housing security and living conditions.


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube