EU wide Renovation Wave: where growth strategy and job creation meet climate goals and social inclusiveness

Unlocking the potential for energy efficiency and carbon footprint reduction that lies in the EU buildings stock is a top priority for the European Alliance to Save Energy.

 

As businesses and investors having energy efficiency and energy demand reduction at the heart of our activities, we look forward to seeing Europe’s global climate leadership translated in green measures which will lead to a sustainable recovery through stimulus packages. We strongly believe that the Renovation Wave as part of the EU Green Deal is a great opportunity to promote a European based industry, with technologies and expertise able to serve the renovation demand locally. This will help to maintain the competitive advantage of the European industry and will contribute to the European green recovery and local job creation while lifting millions of Europeans out of energy poverty.

We support a system-wide approach that puts highly energy efficient, renewable-based, smart and flexible buildings at the center of a fast-changing decentralized energy system.

With this in mind, we envisage an EU wide building Renovation Wave which revolves around the swift implementation of the Energy Efficiency First principle as the fastest and most cost-effective way to reduce emissions and stimulate sustainable economic recovery.

We are convinced that highly energy efficient and smart buildings are the first and indispensable step to:

  • Accelerate the deployment of renewable energy sources
  • Foster sector integration of buildings with other sectors, including industry,
    transport and energy sectors
  • Catalyse energy system decentralization and enhance overall system efficiency
  • Stimulate a sustainable economic recovery, and boost local employment

For this to happen Europe must back an ambitious and impactful Renovation Wave which aims to increase the energy efficiency of buildings by reducing their energy consumption and by fostering the greater quality, the rate, and the depth of comprehensive renovations encompassing envelopes and technical buildings systems. Concretely, and to stay on track with the EPBD goal of decarbonizing the EU building stock by 2050, the Renovation Wave should be designed to reach a minimum of a 3% renovation rate per year combined with an average energy efficiency improvement of 75%.

The social impact of an EU wide energy efficient Renovation Wave would be tremendous. Improved comfort, cleaner indoor and outdoor air quality, reduced energy bills, the emerging role of prosumers with the possibility to optimise and monetise their energy resources on a peer-topeer market place, better and more qualified local jobs are just a few concrete examples of the multiple benefits that Energy Efficiency First in buildings would deliver to those who need them the most, i.e. live in energy poverty.

 

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Open letter to EU leaders: Delivering the European Green Deal for a sustainable and efficient recovery of our economy

Europe’s energy efficiency businesses call on EU leaders to put the European Green Deal at the heart of their upcoming economic stimulus plans.

Brussels, 6 April 2020

Call to EU leaders:
Dear Presidents, Dear Heads of States and Governments,
Dear President of the European Commission, Dear Commissioners,
Dear President of the European Parliament, Dear Members of the European Parliament,
Dear leaders of Europe,

The coronavirus pandemic is a major shock for the European and global economy. After the urgent response measures to address an unprecedented public health crisis, policymakers will have to devise the social and economic policy package to reboot the European economy and safeguard the existing, replace lost and create new millions of jobs across the Union.
In this context, as businesses and investors working in energy efficiency, we look forward to seeing Europe’s global climate leadership translated in green measures which will lead to a sustainable recovery through stimulus packages.
We are convinced that Europe’s ambition to become the first climate neutral continent is a formidable driver to rebuild a solid, resilient, inclusive and sustainable EU economy.

The European Green Deal is an important catalyst for innovation, economic growth, and reinforced environmental and social responsibility. By basing it on the fundamental principles of energy and resource efficiency, circularity and inclusion, it can stimulate an economic transition and job creation in key sectors of our economies such as construction, transport, energy, agriculture and manufacturing.
The European Green Deal is our future-proof growth strategy and we call upon the European Commission and European Council to put it at the very heart of their stimulus plans. We will all benefit from the acceleration of investments stemming from the European Green Deal. The drive towards climate neutrality will create opportunities that will help us out of the economic crisis and prevent future health, social, humanitarian, economic and environmental crisis that we will have to face if we do not reduce CO2 emissions and keep global temperature increase below 1.5°C.

The area of our expertise, energy efficiency, is one of the pillars of the European Green Deal. The EU cannot achieve climate neutrality by 2050 without applying the energy efficiency first principle. Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions and certainly one of the fastest drivers for economic growth and job creation across Europe. We look forward to working with you to fully realize its potential. Through the upcoming stimulus plans, we have a chance to make the EU building stock, transport systems and industrial processes – more energy efficient, and by doing so mitigate the economic and social fallout of the current crisis.

Yours sincerely,

Monica Frassoni
President of the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE)

 

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The Industrial Emissions Directive review and the European Green Deal: fully realise water and energy savings in industry and related emission reduction

We welcome the review of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). While we believe the Directive has been responsible for solid progress against identified air and water pollutants, and the BREF process has contributed to identifying Best Available Techniques, in its current form the Directive is not able to contribute toward EU ambitions for climate neutrality.

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The European Green Deal: a tipping point for good

by Harry Verhaar, EU-ASE Bord Chair and Head of Public & Government Affairs at Signify

It’s been a grave winter for the health of our planet. In Madrid, urgent climate talks dissolved into a disappointing stalemate. The public is informed and engaged in a new and promising way, but is also more divided. We are close to a tipping point: a point at which the rate of change increases dramatically, and possibly irreversibly towards a climate catastrophe.

When we talk about the concept of tipping points, we recognize that change isn’t linear – it’s exponential. We see examples of this all too frequently. As the planet warms, Arctic permafrost thaws, releasing methane and carbon dioxide that further accelerates the pace of change. And as the Earth loses more and more of its white, reflective surfaces, the planet more readily absorbs heat. We’re close to some of nature’s tipping points. Reaching these would have disastrous implications for our planet and our way of life.

Man on the moon moment

But in Europe, a change is coming that could be crucial to containing our carbon emissions and limiting the effects of climate change. On December 11, 2019, the European Commission announced the European Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives aimed at making this continent carbon neutral by 2050. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, called it Europe’s “man on the moon moment.”

The world’s track record with climate regulation has been patchy at best. So, what’s different about the European Green Deal? For me, it marks a fundamental change in the way environmental and sustainability regulation is developed. Historically, change that is focused upon carbon emissions reduction or environmental protection has been weighed in terms of expense: what must we sacrifice to achieve these targets? This tends to shut down public and political discussion, and in my view, has critically undersold the opportunities that sustainable practices bring to the table.

Growth strategy

The Green Deal is not about penalizing businesses and people for doing things in a less sustainable way. It’s a growth strategy, integrated into every public policy plan, that hardwires a preference for sustainable initiatives into every aspect of Europe’s socioeconomic development.

This is an important distinction. When you look more deeply at sustainable solutions, you discover that they are not at odds with economic progress. They are, in fact, better in every way. Take LED lighting. It’s more resource-efficient. Less burdensome on the environment. It costs less over a lifetime. And it is better for people, helping to improve quality of life. It can reduce road traffic accidents, deter crime, make you more productive, contribute to you breathing cleaner air. Who would say no to that?

We’ve said before that as we move into this all-determining decade of climate action, the time for talk is over. The European Green Deal presents a clear and non-negotiable ambition: to be climate-neutral by 2050 at the latest. To get there, we need intermediate milestones too, and that means a cut in emissions of more than half by 2030. This is in line with the recommendation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which advised a reduction of at least 55% by 2030.

 

“A climate neutral goal without action is dreaming.
Climate Action without a clear goal is sleepwalking.”

 

To have our “man on the moon moment”, we need to walk the talk. At Signify, we have our own carbon commitment, to be carbon neutral by the end of this year.

We also call upon others to adopt programs like the Climate Group’s RE100 commitment to renewable energy, to participate in renovation programs that transform existing buildings into net zero carbon buildings, and to adopt a 100% electric vehicle goal for the corporate or the municipal car fleet, because doing these things brings with it progress. It demystifies climate action, it turns ambition into concrete steps, and it demonstrates the economic potential of a new and better way for our society to function.

Progress is not linear

Programs that start with only a few participants have the power to make a difference. We know that the detrimental effects of climate change on our planet are not linear, but the same can be said of our progress. History has shown that many transitions accelerate after reaching a certain momentum. We see this in the lighting sector. At the end of 2006, incandescent light bulbs were still two thirds of our sales volume. In our last quarter, more than 80% of our revenue came from sustainable products, systems and services. The world has more people, bigger urban populations, and more light points than ever before, yet the proportion of global electricity consumption from lighting falls each year, from 19% in 2006, to 13% in 2018, and we expect it to fall further to 8% by 2030.

What happened? LED reached a tipping point. This successful decoupling of electricity consumption from use of light shows that choosing for sustainability does not need to come at a cost. This is just one example of such a decoupling – there can be many more. If we can achieve energy savings on such a scale across buildings, transportation, industry, our targets will be easily met.

To my mind, the European Green Deal can be our tipping point for good. With its broad scope, it reaches into the areas where we can have the most significant impact, and within these, create further tipping points for good. It can change the way we approach regulation. It can prove to the world that sustainability and economic growth need not be at odds. And it can be a time we look back on as the moment when we joined together to divert our path to a better and more sustainable trajectory.

 

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EU-ASE response to European Commission consultation on climate law

According to the Commission LTS, the EU must halve its energy consumption by 2050. Energy efficiency therefore must play a central role in achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.

Considering that the world economy will triple by 2050 and that global population will increase by nearly 2.3 billion by 2050, energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to decouple economic growth from emissions.

Significant reductions in overall energy demand will come from energy use in buildings. Residential and commercial buildings currently account for 40 % of EU energy consumption – with 75 % of these buildings being built before energy performance standards existed – 36% of emissions and 50% of the total mineral resources extracted from the planet. Most of the housing stock of 2050 already exists and will need to be renovated. Our building stock needs to become net zero carbon, which involves ramping up the rate and depth of renovation and ensuring efficient and decarbonised energy supply in the building sector. The “Renovation Wave” needs to build from the implementation of the Long Term Renovation Strategies, but also explore new drivers and triggers, including regulation, in order to scale up what has worked well in some countries.

 

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