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Do building renovation strategies live up to the name?

Panel: 6. Policies and programmes towards a zero-energy building stock

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Dan Staniaszek, The Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), Belgium

Abstract

The majority of our buildings were constructed before minimum energy performance requirements were in place, at a time when energy was plentiful, cheap and not associated with the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing our climate in an unpredictable and damaging way. What is more, most of them will still be here for decades to come.

In signing up to the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), Member States agreed to develop national strategies to renovate their existing stock of buildings. This requirement spans all building types, whether residential or commercial, privately or publicly owned, rented or owner-occupied. First versions of strategies were due by April 2014.

BPIE has reviewed a cross section of strategies in order to determine whether the requirements set out in EED Article 4 have been met, and to assess whether they embody the level of ambition that is consistent with transforming Europe’s existing building stock into a highly energy performing one. Member States are ranked according to their compliance levels. The findings make for sober reading – none of the strategies reviewed can be considered “best practice”, while a number are deficient in their content as to warrant immediate rejection by the European Commission.

The paper concludes with a set of recommendations on how the process of renovation strategy development, and subsequent implementation, needs to be improved if the vast economic, social and environmental benefits waiting to be secured through building renovation are to be attained.

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