Europe’s buildings are off track to climate neutrality

New data shows the urgency to renovate European buildings, writes Oliver Rapf.

Oliver Rapf is the executive director of the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), an independent think tank.

Negotiations for the EU’s Building Directive, the EPBD, are near their tail end, with the next trilogue meeting between the EU institutions planned for 7 December.

We understand that co-legislators are keen to wrap up discussions before the new year and reach a final text, which is understandable.

The policy ‘recast’ process – standard practice to ‘upgrade’ existing legislation – is about to hit the two-year mark, and the political focus in the new year will be on EU elections in spring and the priorities of a new European Commission.

At the same time, the EU will want to be a global leader in climate policy in the upcoming COP 28 climate negotiations in early December.

Indeed, we can all agree that reaching an impactful conclusion on the EPBD now is more beneficial than delaying it further, as progress to improve the environmental performance of our buildings is stalling.

The second edition of the EU Buildings Climate Tracker (EU BCT), just published by BPIE, shows that despite the European Green Deal, the binding political pledges agreed in Paris in 2015 with 196 parties, and new European climate goals for 2030 and 2050 approved by all 27 EU member states, the building sector is, still, far off track to meeting climate neutrality.

Severely off track

The EU Buildings Climate Tracker shows a huge gap between where the building stock should be on the path to climate neutrality and where it really is.

Developed by BPIE, the EU BCT is a unique independent tool to monitor the progress of the building stock in the European Union towards the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050, covering the period from 2015 until 2020.

For the EU, the tracker identified a significant overall decarbonisation gap of over 10 points between where we are today and where we should be on the path to climate neutrality.

A special geographic focus on Central and Eastern Europe shows an even more worrying trend: by 2020, the progress in decarbonising the building stock will be 21 points off the required decarbonisation path, the largest gap since the beginning of the tracker period in 2015.

The tracker measures the progress in the form of a points-based index composed of five indicators, including CO2 emissions, final energy consumption, renewable energy share, investments in renovation, and domestic energy expenditures.

It combines indicators relevant to climate and energy policymaking with indicators addressing social policy questions such as energy affordability.

The findings highlight the need for a significant increase in efforts to agree and implement effective policies in the near future.

Reducing energy-related emissions

While it is essential to quickly close the EPBD negotiations, a fainthearted agreement that adds more unclarity on interpreting policies is unacceptable.

The EPBD must prioritise drastic reduction of energy use in existing buildings through renovation and must under no circumstances allow any room for fossil fuels using blurred language or sneaky loopholes in the final text.

Europe must significantly intensify its efforts to renovate the building stock to the highest performance standards. A strong EPBD is our best chance to ensure we quickly pull ourselves out of harm’s way and onto the path to climate neutrality.

Some of the new provisions expected to make the final text of the EPBD are paramount to quickly reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, but the final language agreed can make all the difference in how effective they really are.

In particular, minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) should be clearly designed, address the worst-performing buildings first, establish clear milestones and timelines with an ambition level in line with climate neutrality in 2050, and ensure a strong compliance support and enforcement system to monitor and track their deployment and impacts.

BPIE recently collected data highlighting strong motivation of citizens to live and work in healthy, renovated buildings. Access to healthy homes, and a huge reduction in energy bills, can become a reality.

We see innovative new business models led by burgeoning young companies that are enabling renovation at an unprecedented scale and transforming the image of what it means to be a construction worker.

A strong EPBD is urgent, desirable, and possible

While we know policymakers are impatient to close EPBD negotiations quickly, they are also responsible for ensuring citizens have healthy homes with affordable energy bills, protecting them from climate change impacts, and increasing Europe’s energy independence.

The EPBD has been highly politicised. But the benefits of a strong agreement far outweigh the risk of accepting lackadaisical legislation, which must be avoided at all costs.

A strong EPBD will strengthen innovation, future job markets, and the social fabric. And beyond that, it is essential in the fight against climate change. We know that renovating Europe is urgent. It is also desirable, and we have abundant proof that it is possible. Let’s make it happen.