World Green Building Council: EU Policy Whole Life Carbon Roadmap 23 No single solution can achieve a decarbonised built environment; the future EU policy framework must consider policies (and enabling tools) to address the impact of buildings more systematically. by integrating subnational contributions into overarching goals and strategies while optimising vertical and horizontal institutional arrangements (see Section 3). Local and subnational governments’ key roles in securing a climate- neutral and resilient transition for Europe’s built environment must not be overlooked. Effective multi-level governance is key to accessing their full potential, and overcoming their obstacles, EU POLICY ROADMAP: BUILDING REGULATIONS Effective co-designed and co-implemented regulations, policies and initiatives are needed for Europe to become a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. Recommendations and tools that can help deliver this systemic change are outlined below under the four policy routes. Building regulations are an effective policy route to mandating a low-carbon trajectory for new construction and renovation. At the EU level, the EPBD is the single most important legislative tool available for tackling the built environment’s climate impact. The EED is also an important legislative tool as it requires renovation of buildings in the public sector, which can show the way to a low- carbon building stock. These directives should evolve rapidly to include additional requirements on minimising the WLC footprint of buildings. Until very recently, policy measures to decarbonise Europe's building stock have focussed primarily on energy efficiency and reducing emissions from the operation of Europe's building stock. Among these measures have been requirements for new buildings and for Member States to develop long term renovation strategies for existing buildings. However, so far average performance improvement rates remain very low at just 9% and 16% energy efficiency gains for residential and commercial renovations, respectively. 56 EU policymakers must implement WLC metrics and thresholds to bring building policies in line with long-term carbon neutrality goals. As not all carbon emissions are related to energy, simply making a building energy efficient will not necessarily mean it is a zero carbon emissions building. Accounting for embodied carbon emissions at a building level would create greater demand for low- carbon materials. Defining zero-emission buildings The ZEB concept proposed in the recast EPBD currently only refers to buildings’ operational performance. However, to reach carbon neutrality goals, all buildings must evolve to be net zero WLC. The Commission must therefore outline how ZEB definitions, based on the ‘energy efficiency first’ principle, will go beyond the NZEB and current proposed ZEB ambitions to ensure that energy and carbon metrics (based on the Level(s) framework) are complementary and support the 2050 goal of net zero WLC new building infrastructure and renovations. To achieve a climate-neutral Europe, regulation must tackle sources of building carbon emissions from all parts of the life cycle. On the operational side, energy demand must be reduced as much as possible, meaning new construction must be highly energy efficient and the renovation of existing buildings to improve their energy performance must be prioritised. The current EU renovation rates of 1.2% to 1.4% are insufficient to achieve the Paris Agreement goals and the rates must increase to 3% to 5% per year. 57 A renovation rate of 3% is considered economically attainable without shortening the normal renovation cycle and unnecessarily increasing costs for households, businesses or governments. It is key that building regulations promote higher renovation rates at a sustainable pace. 58 The regulatory landscape must also tackle sources of building carbon emissions from other parts of the life cycle. This involves quantifying the embodied carbon of the manufacturing, transportation, construction, renovation and end-of-life phases of built assets and setting targets to reduce these GHG emissions. For new builds with the highest energy efficiency standards, and therefore low operational energy needs, embodied carbon becomes the most significant area of carbon emissions over the building’s lifetime. The net zero WLC buildings definition should clarify the boundaries and scope of emissions under EN 15978. This definition must be supported by guidance and principles to harmonise Member States’ approaches and to enable comparisons across the EU. Introducing whole life carbon targets The EU will simply not meet carbon neutrality goals unless WLC targets are introduced for all buildings . We recommend that the Commission establish WLC targets in line with its decarbonisation trajectory; however, we have not indicated limit values for these targets due to lack of available data. Therefore, our Roadmap recommends urgently collecting the WLC data so that benchmarks for different building types can be established and WLC limit values can be integrated into EU and national policy frameworks. Buildings Performance Institute Europe’s recent How to Embed Whole Life Carbon in the EPBD report provides a guide for aligning with the decarbonisation trajectory. As stated in the report, there is an urgent need to fill those data gaps and develop an EU-wide WLC trajectory aligned with science-based pathways. An illustrative example of how these targets could look is shown in Figure 2. 56 European Union (2019), Comprehensive study of building energy renovation activities and the uptake of nearly zero-energy buildings in the EU. 57 See NDC Partnership. 58 See Eurima.
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