Buildings and their renovation play a vital role in EU’s objective of becoming climate neutral. Overall, buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the EU’s total energy consumption, and for 36% of its greenhouse gas emissions from energy. More than 220 million building units were built before 2001 – 85-95% will exist in 2050 – of which most are not energy-efficient, use old technologies and wasteful appliances, and rely on fossil fuels for heating and cooling. In addition, the pandemic and social distancing has brought into sharper focus our buildings as homes have become a focal point of people’s lives. Some of the effects of the pandemic may continue in the longer term and, thereby, creating new demands on buildings and their energy and resource profile, hence, further adding to the need to renovate them deeply and on a massive scale.
As Europe seeks to overcome the COVID-19 crisis, renovation offers a unique opportunity to rethink, redesign and modernise our buildings to make them fit for a greener and digital society and sustain economic recovery. Building and renovating in an energy and resource efficient way will require an overhaul of the construction industry since the use and renovation of buildings require significant amounts of energy and mineral resources such as sand, gravel and cement. Today the annual renovation rate of the building stock varies from 0.4 to 1.2% in the Member States. This rate will at least need to be doubled to reach the EU’s energy efficiency and climate objectives. In parallel, 50 million consumers struggle to keep their homes adequately warm. A 3% target must be reached for public building renovation.
‘Energy efficiency first’, as outlined in the European Green Deal and the EU strategy on Energy System Integration, is the guiding principle of European climate and energy governance to ensure that energy produced equals need. Thereby, under the new Renovation Strategy [COM/2020/662 final] building and renovation needs to address :
The European Commission introduced a new strategy, "A Renovation Wave for Europe – Greening our buildings, creating jobs, improving lives" (COM(2020)662), to boost renovation, which aims to double annual energy renovation rates in the next ten years. These renovations will enhance the quality of life for people living in and using the buildings (also addressing vulnerable people Commission Recommendation on Energy Poverty ((EU) 2020/1563)), reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions, and create up to 160,000 additional green jobs in the construction sector.
In addition the Commission adopted new rules for the Smart Readiness of Buildings (COM 2020/6929 & COM 2020/6930). Specifically, the smart readiness indicator aims to promote digitally friendly renovations, integrate renewable energy and enable measurements of actual energy consumption. Other initiative are the New European Bauhaus and European construction sector observatory (where the EC proposes to implement an open platform bringing together the buildings and construction sector, architects and engineering and local authorities to: Develop innovative financing possibilities; Promote energy efficiency investments in buildings; Pool renovating efforts into large blocks to benefit from economies of scale).
The renovation wave initiative will build on measures agreed under the Clean energy for all Europeans package, notably the requirement for each EU country to publish a long-term building renovation strategy (LTRS), other aspects of the amending Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings ((EU) 2018/844), and building-related aspects of each EU country's national energy and climate plans (NECP).
EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2020