BRUSSELS – The European Builders Confederation (EBC) stresses that the energy renovation market is becoming more and more crucial for the construction sector, which contributes 9% to the EU’s GDP.
In fact an infographic developed by EBC, in collaboration with Renovate Europe, shows a turnover of EUR 109 billion and the creation of 882,900 jobs related to this activity in 2015.
While welcoming the ongoing review of the Energy Efficiency Directive and of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, EBC urges the European Parliament and the Council of the EU to take into account some relevant factors.
REVISION OF THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY DIRECTIVE (2012/27/EU)
EBC recommends policymakers to:
• Establish a stable long-term regulatory and financial framework to kick-start massive retrofitting
of existing buildings or the replacement of obsolete and inefficient equipment;
• Allocate more public funds to renovation and to improvement of energy efficiency in private housing and to make them easily accessible;
• Support the continued use of energy savings obligations.
REVISION OF THE ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS DIRECTIVE ( 2010/31/EU)
EBC recommends to:
• Move the exemplary role of public bodies’ buildings from the Energy Efficiency Directive to this directive and expand its scope to cover all public buildings (local, regional and national level);
• Support and promote public and private financing schemes for energy efficiency;
• Ensure the dissemination of best practices regarding the aggregation of small energy renovation projects;
• Include regular maintenance of heating and air-conditioning systems in the directive;
• Lower the threshold for both the regular inspection and maintenance of heating and air-conditioning systems
• Facilitate the aggregation of SMEs in groups and consortia
• Strengthen on-the-job training
For more information please refer to the EBC position papers.
Next steps
The draft report will be submitted for translation in April and will be discussed in ITRE at the end of May. The European Parliament will vote on both revisions during the plenary session in November.