The buildings sector will benefit from new legislation and guidelines to increase the renovation of EU buildings stock, according to energy commissioner Günther Oettinger. MEP Peter Liese says renovation is a more affordable way to tackle climate change than paying for renewables.
Brussels – The buildings sector will benefit from new legislation and guidelines to increase the renovation of EU buildings stock, according to energy commissioner Günther Oettinger.
Oettinger today welcomed a recent construction sector strategy report from enterprise commissioner Antonio Tajani, which encourages the renovation of both old and new EU buildings.
“Encouraging more renovation is an excellent way to make this sector start working again. The commission is keen to create the right conditions for more private-sector investment,” Oettinger said.
He said he also believed countries would go further with the renovation of existing buildings than is currently required by law.
An energy efficiency directive (EED), agreed in June, sets countries a binding target of renovating three percent of the floor area of public-sector buildings to meet minimum energy-performance standards.
Oettinger said he was confident many member states would broaden the three-percent target to more buildings.
Peter Liese, the German MEP who led the EED through the European Parliament, said investing in buildings renovation was the only way for countries to meet EU climate targets at the same time as saving money. “A strategy built only on renewables, particularly the way we are doing it in Germany, is very expensive,” he said.
“Energy efficiency is the cost-effective part of our climate strategy,” according to Liese. MEPs debating a commission renewable-energy strategy this week warned that the cost of renewables would become increasingly difficult for national governments to justify (see here).
Liese said that adding a long-term 2050 target for the energy efficiency of building stock to the EED was “one of parliament’s biggest achievements.”
He dismissed criticism that cutting energy needs through efficiency requirements would push the need for emissions-trading permits – and therefore their price – to even lower levels.
Efficiency standards for buildings are needed because “more than 50 percent of EU emissions are not covered by the Emissions Trading System (ETS),” Liese explained. “This is mainly [emissions from] buildings.”
Because the ETS was designed for large-scale industrial emissions, rather than smaller individual amounts of CO2 from buildings, he said there was unlikely to be a “reliable” way to include buildings in the trading system.
Both Liese and Oettinger were speaking at an event to launch a new study on the ‘multiple benefits of investing in energy efficiency of buildings.’ *
The study was written by Copenhagen Economics on behalf of the industry coalition Renovate Europe.
It finds that annual investments of 41-78 billion euros in buildings renovation in the EU will bring annual benefits of 104-175 billion euros by 2020.

Lower energy bills would account for 52-75 billion euros of the annual benefits. The rest would be thanks to reduced energy subsidies, reduced pollution and improved human health.

* Euroace, Renovate Europe Day, Brussels, 11 October 2012