Imagine walking through a city where every building is a testament to sustainability, resilience and innovation. A city built by – and now serving – a prosperous, diverse and cohesive society.   

This vision of Europe is not a distant dream.   

It’s an achievable reality if the European Commission delivers on advancing its sustainable building policy – plans for which should be firmly at the top of President Ursula von der Leyen’s inbox when she returns from summer recess later this month.  

In just a few short weeks, her second term will begin in earnest, as will her second push at keeping Europe’s green transition alive – a five-year marathon to cement both her and the bloc’s environmental legacy. 

The Commission’s activity to date has been commendable. The revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) were key steps towards accelerating climate action in the sector and driving plans under the Renovation Wave to boost energy efficiency in both public and private buildings.   

Renewable-energy carbon credits rejected by high-integrity scheme

In the “Political Guidelines released shortly after her re-election, von der Leyen has shown promising signs of continuing to champion sustainable buildings as a climate solution. There is a pledge to create the first EU commissioner with direct responsibility for housing, while our sector awaits with interest the new “Circular Economy Act”, designed to create market demand for reused and recycled materials. 

This is promising – but von der Leyen must go further both in implementing existing policies and in developing new ones to maximise the holistic benefits of sustainable buildings for everyone. 

We know already that sustainable buildings have huge greenhouse gas reduction potential. Buildings are responsible for about 40% of total energy consumption in the EU and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions from energy, so they can help improve energy security, reducing the bloc’s exposure to geopolitical shocks and reliance on fossil fuels.     

Creating jobs, lowering energy costs 

What isn’t spoken about enough is that they have the potential to address other issues facing Europe today: the cost of living and the unemployment crises.   

For me, these less-discussed issues in the context of buildings are just as, if not more, important due to their co-benefits for people and society.    

Take the energy efficient renovation of buildings, for example. The widespread availability of well-insulated buildings that keep out the heat during summer but retain the warmth during winter will significantly cut energy costs across the continent.   

The benefits of this will be far-reaching, but particularly for vulnerable or low-income households. Given soaring energy bills, improving energy efficiency across buildings would not only reduce associated costs, but also enhance living conditions.   

The benefits of renovating buildings do not stop here.   

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy supply chains

This task alone could create millions of employment opportunities across Europe: 18 jobs are created for every €1 million invested in this type of renovation.   

Bearing in mind figures from the European Commission, which calculated that €275 billion will be needed annually to bridge the building renovation gap in the EU, this level of investment could lead to nearly 5 million extra jobs across the bloc.   

Not only that, there is a real financial incentive for national governments to look towards investing in the building sector to save in the long run. Data from the Spanish government showed that while supporting one person through unemployment cost €20,000, funding a new construction role amounted to €14,000, a significant decrease. These statistics show a real-world example of how buildings can both address governmental issues and create better prospects for individuals.   

Blueprint ready to go 

Europe is at a significant moment in its history.   

We are only five years away from 2030, a deadline by which Europe committed to slash half its emissions, determining whether it will be on track to become the first climate-neutral continent. Yet the recent parliamentary elections showed a record number of seats from parties that could make the path to net zero more challenging. 

Von der Leyen has a real chance to confirm her legacy of green policies by driving an energy-efficient, regenerative and just transition in the built environment. World Green Building Council’s Europe Regional Network stands ready to continue to build momentum with the Commission over the next five years and create tangible benefits at the individual, societal and national levels.   

Let’s create a brighter, equitable and more sustainable future for all of Europe. The blueprint is ready; we just need to turn it into reality.   

The World Green Building Council leads BuildingLife, a project that drives the Commission’s EU Green Deal across the bloc by working to eliminate the whole-life carbon impact of buildings. 

The post How better buildings can help von der Leyen maintain her green legacy    appeared first on Climate Home News.

It’s certainly iconic, but could Notre Dame cathedral be greener? (Flickr/Giorgos~)

By Megan Darby

“The words ‘energy efficiency’ are very boring to most people – they fall asleep by the third syllable.”

That, for Farhana Yamin, is one of the main reasons green building initiatives have yet to take off in a big way.

She wants to see iconic buildings get a low carbon makeover, to capture the public imagination: “In emissions terms they may not be so significant, but in communications terms they are very big.”

The head of Track Zero, a think-tank advocating a long term global net zero emissions target, is at a round table with construction executives.

As part of Climate Week Paris, they are trying to pull together a “buildings day” at UN climate negotiations in December.

This would showcase the potential to slash emissions from new and existing buildings – but where to start?

There is some support for the idea of eye-catching refurbishment projects. It has been done, most notably with the Empire State Building in New York.

The Gherkin has not lived up to energy efficient design claims (Flickr/Davide D’Amico)

RTCC asks which structures people in the room would most like to get their hands on.

Notre Dame, a cathedral 800 years in the making and top Paris attraction, is one suggestion.

London’s “Gherkin”, a 41-storey office block, is another. Built just over a decade ago, it was supposed to use half the energy of a traditional skyscraper, but the reality was different. Tenants eschewed the natural ventilation on offer, preferring energy-hungry air conditioning.

Or how about the Taj Mahal? Most of the world’s new buildings in the coming decades will crop up in Asia. There more than anywhere low carbon pioneers need to get the message across.

“It depends what story you want to communicate,” says Alistair Guthrie, of engineering consultancy Arup.

“The Taj Mahal is a great story but it doesn’t use much energy at all, so from an energy efficiency point of view it is not the best example.”

Choked in smog, could the Taj Mahal become a low carbon beacon? (Pic: Jaymis Loveday/Flickr)

Guthrie favours a more down-to-earth approach: “Forget buildings that look like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. People don’t relate to those buildings.”

The largest sub-sector is housing, points out Pascal Eveillard, head of sustainable construction at Saint-Gobain. “Putting the residential sector high on the agenda should be a priority.”

James Drinkwater from the World Green Building Council agrees, citing the revamp of a township in Durban. “A radical improvement of the Empire State Building is nice, it gets public attention, but the message for me has to be better buildings change quality of life,” he says.

Cato Manor township in Durban got a green retrofit ahead of UN climate talks in 2011 (Green Building Council of South Africa)

In California, revenue from selling emissions permits to big polluters has been funnelled into green improvements for homes and small businesses. A quarter of the budget is reserved for low income communities, says Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board.

“The number of small businesses involved in this is amazing,” she says. “This is a way to get to grassroots.”

There is general agreement that to succeed, a drive for zero carbon buildings must be about more than emissions.

“It’s about energy security, it’s about less reliance on imports, it’s about more money in people’s pockets,” says Arup’s Guthrie.

Public communications aside, the building sector itself is “not very innovative,” Eveillard says.

Those in the room may be keen to do more, but the wider industry is slow to adopt green materials and technology.

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, director of the Prince of Wales Corporate Leaders Group and co-host of the discussion with Track0, urges advocates to face up to the challenge.

“If everyone says energy efficiency is the low hanging fruit, why the hell haven’t we got where we wanted to?” she asks. “We have to rally ourselves behind a narrative.”

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Pic: NASA/Bill Ingalls

By Sophie Yeo

Buckingham Palace has signed up to a carbon-cutting club – the latest sign that the UK’s queen thinks green.

The Royal Household, which also takes care of St James’s Palace, Kensington Palace and Windsor Castle, has joined a network of organisations which swap practical tools and techniques to lower their carbon footprint.

It emerged earlier this month that the queen is privately concerned about climate change, after she pondered to Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo whether the high level of flooding at Balmoral, her Scottish getaway, might have been caused by climate change.

The year-old programme was launched by the National Trust and sustainable energy charity Ashden last year, and now has 85 members, including the Church of England, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Oxford University.

Together, its members look after 18 world heritage sites and an area of Britain the size of Devon. Through site visits, workshops and best practice evaluations, they are able to share advice about energy saving and renewable projects.

“To look after the landscapes, wildlife and heritage we love as a nation, we need to do everything we can to reduce carbon emissions,” said Helen Ghosh, head of the National Trust.

“When you see years of coastal erosion take place in a matter of months and are battling the destruction of flooding, new pests and diseases on our natural and historic heritage, you have to be concerned about climate change and its effects.”

The queen’s households have a mixed record when it comes to climate change.

Last year, staff at Balmoral unveiled plans for a new hydroelectric station that would make the estate self-sufficient.

But Buckingham Palace, the queen’s London home, scored zero out of 10 in a 2009 survey of the capital’s least green buildings.

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(Pic: MHX/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn

“Deep renovation” of buildings could slash EU dependence on energy imports, according to energy consultants Ecofys.

Dependence on Russian gas is a critical political issue in the European Union in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, which has limited the bloc’s room for foreign policy manoeuvre.

The European Commission is presently drafting a note on how to reduce energy dependence; a draft version says that efficiency improvements could energy use in the building sector by up to three quarters.

Ecofys looked specifically at natural gas consumption, and estimated that building upgrades could cut the sector’s gas use by 95% by 2050.

It estimated that the alternatives, such focusing domestic renewable energy supply or increasing domestic shale gas production, would be more expensive, in its report, titled “Deep renovation of buildings – an effective way to decrease Europe’s energy import dependency”.

Demand in the building sector is responsible for about 40% of energy consumption in the EU, including a third of natural gas.

“Deep renovation is a suitable way forward, not only for reduction of EU’s dependency on imports, but also for generating significant greenhouse gas emission reductions and energy savings, while providing a strong impetus for economic recovery and job creation,” said the report.

It defined deep renovation as a steady annual improvement in the efficiency of building envelopes and the use of decentralised renewable power.

The building sector consumes about 60% of all imported gas, the Ecoys report calculated.

Deep renovation could cut gas consumption in particular through a switch to electric heating powered by renewable power, displacing gas and coal, and through massive improvements in efficiency to reduce overall energy use.

By 2040, indigenous supplies of natural gas within the EU, as of 2011 levels, would be sufficient to cover all building sector needs.

The report compared the costs of deep renovation, at 2-9 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) saved, with the generation costs of renewable power at 5-18 cents, to suggest that efficiency was a more cost-effective technology.

The Ecofys report was commissioned by Eurima, the European Insulation Manufacturers Association which represents the interests of producers of insulation materials in Europe.

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