Towards EU Water Resilience Strategy: key priorities to be addressed

The critical importance of water is gaining recognition at the EU level. The EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen included this vital topic in her Political Guidelines for 2024-2029 and water was also featured in the Mission Letter of the Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and Competitive Circular Economy.

As the EU Institutions begin to develop a European Water Resilience Strategy, they should take the below points into consideration. They are inspired from the energy sector. While water and energy are very different, some elements from existing EU energy policy can serve as food for thoughts.

1. Water Efficiency

A Water Efficiency First Principle should be developed (following the model of the Energy Efficiency First Principle) and enshrined in law. The principle should be supported by guidelines for its implementation across the whole water cycle.

Accompanying water efficiency standards should be developed either per sector or for key water intensive industries – the best approach should be defined through consultations and expert discussions.

2. Risk Preparedness Plans for Water

In the electricity sector, each Member State has developed comprehensive national risk preparedness plans based on local situations, risks, and how to address them proactively. Developing similar national risk preparedness and resilience plans for water by each Member State will be instrumental in managing current and future water-related risks.

3. Financing

A total of €255bn needs to be invested in the EU water supply and sanitation sector by 2030 to comply with EU legislation and for some climate mitigation measures.

In the next EU Multi-annual Financial Framework for 2028-2034 we need cross-cutting funds from existing funding streams to be grouped around the strategic priority of water, following the RePower EU model. These funds should be available to all EU Member States, to both public and private actors including municipalities, industry and buildings.

 

Tania Pentcheva
Director Europe Government and Industry Relations 
Xylem

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Mission efficiency : Games are opening, let’s perform, now !

Writing this note on my way back from the first European Parliament plenary session, I can’t help but draw a parallel with the 2024 Olympics game opening soon in Paris.

I always thought of our Energy Efficiency game as a marathon, including trainings and a solid “never-give-up” mindset, whatever the political winds. We first succeeded in the initiatory 2012 EED negotiations and we made it in the 2030 climate & energy package. Things then got more serious and we managed to take our medals from the Fit for 55 real marathon. We even secured that everyone would start exercising with mainstreaming our Energy Efficiency First principle into the broader policy spectrum.

So, what are we up to at the start of the 2024-29 mandate ?  

First, time to perform! And our performance – called implementation in the EU jargon – is about delivering more savings and valorising the genuine value of energy efficiency. It is not just about running and being resilient, efficiency will help with changing cycling gears in the energy transition towards 2040, and be faster at integrating renewables in the grid. It is empowering our industry to swim better in the global competitiveness race. In fact, energy efficiency looks more like a triathlon game.

Second, our Efficiency Club should get bigger, as everyone trying it gets a more stable future, a healthier home and an extra protection against energy price volatility. In this perspective, efficiency is key to solve housing issues and secure low bills in the long run. But as many good things, its benefits have been kept secret for too long. So let’s get more affiliates in the club – not only the geeky ones – and a bigger crowd celebrating successes.

Last but not least, we need sponsors. Continuity and diversity will be key here, as we certainly need continuous public funding e.g. from the EU recovery, cohesion, ETS and modernisation funding streams, but crucially also a more diverse set of private sponsors. If you or any of your friends happen to be interested in good investments, come and talk to me at the end of the Olympics !

 

Céline Carré
Head of Public Affairs
Saint-Gobain

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Action on energy efficiency requires both technological and social change

Although sometimes overlooked in the race to devise innovative solutions to the climate crisis, energy efficiency remains crucially important. Energy efficiency has contributed to greater savings in primary energy and faster reductions in emissions compared to the transition to renewable energy resources. While the growth in global energy consumption dropped by 2.1% during the pandemic year of 2022, the growth rate remains higher than the average rate measured from 2010 to 2019. What can we do to slow this rate of growth, or even reverse it?

One of the best ways to take immediate and effective action is to transition from conventional lighting to energy-efficient LED lighting. LED light sources consume less than half the energy consumed by incandescent and fluorescent light sources, and up to 80% less energy when managed in a connected system. An individual light bulb or luminaire consumes a small amount of energy, but since lighting is everywhere that people are, the global lighting footprint is significant.

This means that transitioning to energy-efficient lighting solutions can have a significant effect. Since economic growth results in global increases in the use of artificial lighting, inaction will result in a significant increase in global energy consumption for lighting by 2030. While the global transition to energy-efficient LED lighting is moving very quickly—approximately 85% of lighting sales at Signify are LED today, for example—there are still significant benefits that can be gained by accelerating the depletion of the installed base of conventional lighting, which still accounts for almost 50% of all light points in the EU and the US. In fact, the worldwide switch to LED and connected LED could decrease global energy demand for electricity by 30%, while at the same time reducing carbon emissions by 1.4 billion metric tons a year. The switch is easy and relatively inexpensive to make, in both residential and commercial built environments.

It is important to keep in mind that making the transition to energy-efficient lighting involves not just technological change but also social change. People should be willing to make the switch. Individuals have to understand the positive effects of well-managed LED lighting on comfort and well-being. Businesses and cities have to understand its advantages not only in terms of energy and emissions reductions but also in terms of improvements to operations and quality of life.

A sense of urgency is appropriate. But fearmongering and finger-pointing will not bring about the necessary social change. Instead, the emphasis has to be on taking effective energy-efficiency action and improving the quality of life, work, and the economy. With the right approach, we can have our cake and eat it too.

 

Harry Verhaar
Global Head of Brand, Communication & Marketing
Signify

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System efficiency in 2024: Three priorities for the next EU Commission

System efficiency is a key metric to evaluate how far the European Green Deal has taken us in the energy transition.  

Why system efficiency and what is it?  System efficiency is the measure of how well a system utilizes resources to achieve its desired output with minimal waste. In this context, it refers to the systematic application of the Energy Efficiency First (EE1) principle. This means that examining system efficiency provides a way to assess the broad socio-economic advantages linked to measures improving energy efficiency. 

To maximize efficiency, we need to accelerate the decarbonisation of buildings, ensure that future energy networks are designed to electrify most of the economy, while strategically focusing on using hydrogen in hard-to-electrify applications as gas networks are decommissioned due to declining fossil gas demand. 

The recent agreement on the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) only requires minimal obligations for Member States, leaves flexibility for fossil fuel technologies, and avoids banning certain heating technologies in buildings. 

Despite positive steps such as establishing the European Network of Network Operators of Hydrogen (ENNOH) to counter fossil gas industry influence, challenges remain in the gas package directive, which applies hydrogen unbundling rules only to Transmission System Operators (TSOs), leaving Distribution System Operators (DSOs) exempt and potentially leading to costly hydrogen investments at the local level. 

Considering the above, the next EU Commission can improve overall energy system efficiency by following three priorities: 

  1. Making energy efficiency an energy security priority through a new task force that focuses on leveraging energy efficiency progress and demand flexibility as an active lever towards European energy security. 
  2. Making local delivery institutions fit for delivering energy efficiency, providing increased support for municipalities and regional governments and setting targets for system transformation. 
  3. Enhancing system efficiency in gas networks by establishing a framework for decommissioning obsolete fossil infrastructure and strategically designing hydrogen networks for areas where no other decarbonisation option exists. 

Raphael Hanoteaux
Senior Policy Advisor
E3G

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Repetition Is Key: The Latin Maxim “Repetita Iuvant” Holds True.

Since the European Commission unveiled the Clean Energy for All Europeans package on 30 November 2016, including the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) revision, the alliance has consistently played a central role in shaping its contents. Through collective efforts we have actively contributed position papers, organized events, and proposed amendments — all available on our website.

Why do we need an ambitious final revision of the EPBD? Below are my three compelling reasons:

Energy and Emissions Impact: Buildings account for approximately 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. They stand as the largest energy consumers in Europe. To maintain our competitive edge while the clean energy transition reshapes global energy markets, we must act on buildings.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction: The EPBD represents the primary EU policy avenue for tackling both operational and embedded greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. This approach will effectively decarbonize the EU building stock, boost the EU building sector’s competitiveness, create new employment opportunities, and support the research, development, and innovation of relevant technologies.

Sustainability Strategies: The final EPBD revision should incorporate sustainable strategies such as circularity, sufficiency, and the utilization of low-carbon and natural-based materials. These strategies are essential for reducing Whole Life Carbon emissions and ensuring the decarbonization of buildings. Phasing out fossil fuels from new heating and cooling systems across the EU must happen by 2030.

Stay tuned and join us to making a significant impact by reaching a deal on the Directive by the end of 2023. 

Sergio Andreis
Director
Kyoto Club

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