Brussels, 28/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 27 April, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), an international association of 200 multinational companies dedicated to sustainable development, published a new report, Transforming the Market: Energy Efficiency in Buildings, which sets a target of a 60% reduction in energy consumption in buildings by 2050. the publication of this report comes only a few days after the co-decision report by Silvia-Adriana Ticãu (PES, Romania) on the revision of the 2002 directive on the energy performance of buildings was adopted (on Thursday 23 April, see EUROPE 9889). This report calls on member states to ensure that all buildings constructed after 1 January 2019 produce as much energy as they consume (“zero energy” buildings). The report is one way for the 14 companies (which include Lafarge, ArcelorMittal, EDF, GDF Suez, Philips and Bosch) which took part in the four-year research project guided by a group of experts, to give voice the views of the business world in the European and worldwide debate on energy security and how to tackle climate change. The study covers residential buildings (both individual and multiple-occupancy) and commercial buildings (office and commercial blocks) in six geographical areas (EU, United States, Japan, China, India and Brazil) which account for two thirds of the world's energy consumption. With industrial buildings, they are responsible for 40% of global CO2 emissions, the report says, and it sets out a roadmap for the building sector and governmental authorities.
The necessary transformation of the building sector - The roadmap promotes necessary transformation of the building sector through an integrated approach to design, innovation and management of buildings. Constant van Aerschot, Head of Sustainable Construction in the French company Lafarge, and Joint Chairman of the project said that “the building industry is too fragmented: the various players in the value chain of the building sector have to adopt a coherent overall approach”. The report recommends a profound change in attitude within the building industry, which generally underestimates the importance of the sector in climate change and overestimates the additional costs of sustainable building equipment and materials, according to a study conducted by the WBCSD in 2007.
More government measures - The market alone cannot make all the changes needed, said WBCSD President Björn Stigson. “That is why we are calling for a huge, coordinated global effort. If we can make this effort, we will reduce greenhouse gases and, at the same time, stimulate economic growth,” he went on. While the report argues that the market should bear the costs of the transformation, public policies should promote “good practice” in energy efficiency through financial and tax incentives (energy or environmental taxes, for example) or through subsidies. It was urgent that investment be directed towards the renovation of already constructed buildings, which will form 60% of world building stock in 2050. The report concludes that the cost of refitting buildings can be largely compensated by energy savings, but the scale of the investment shows that public subsidies are required. Governments are called on to toughen heating regulations and to agree a common international standard for measuring energy performance. This recommendation is along the same lines as the EP call to the Commission to establish a common method for calculating the performance of buildings by the end of March 2010. Van Aerschot, acknowledging the EU's leading role in energy efficiency, thinks that the European directive that is currently being revised should go further: the energy performance diagnostics (EPD) which form part of the European regulation and includes an energy label (scale of A to G) is not, he said, an absolute measure of efficiency since it lacks indicators to calculate energy consumption in relation to volume and per capita. The report may be downloaded from http://www.wbcsd.org (Y.P./transl.rt)