World Green Building Council: EU Policy Whole Life Carbon Roadmap 25 National Climate Action Roadmaps Data Individual Climate Action Roadmaps At a Member State level, National Building Climate Action Roadmaps should replace long-term renovation strategies so all buildings – both current and future – are covered by national roadmaps compatible with the EU’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050. These roadmaps must: • State the impact of the national building stock on national carbon emissions • Outline a trajectory to net zero WLC for all buildings by 2050 • Verify that WLC limits for all buildings are aligned with a net zero trajectory These plans must be continuously monitored and verified. For EU-wide comparability, the framework of indicators developed via the BUILD UPON2 project should be the blueprint for the common template of specific data and indicators. At a building level, Individual Climate Action Roadmaps, incorporating BRPs, should be required for all buildings to ensure that both current and future buildings have a plan to achieve net zero WLC. These roadmaps must outline: • How progressively tightened MEPS can help operationalise the pathway to climate neutrality • Measures for reducing WLC emissions • Expected energy savings, GHG emission reductions, health and comfort benefits The Commission must clarify how digital building logbooks can support these roadmaps and act as a common repository for all relevant building data based on EPCs, Level(s), material passports, etc. Harmonisation and standardisation The performance and comparability of WLC calculations currently vary between Member States. A consistent and harmonised approach to quantifying, reporting and setting thresholds is needed to enable a solid basis for enforcing and setting accurate WLC targets. The Commission must develop guidance on how the Level(s) framework will be used to develop relevant measures, including how to harmonise WLC calculation, reporting, benchmarking and limits under the relevant modules of EN 15978. This anomaly must be tackled to give Member States a clear picture of emissions’ contributions, on both a production and consumption basis, and to incentivise them to act on this. Databases As data is key to implementing the recommendations in this Roadmap, the development of open-source databases at EU and Member State level must be a priority. Data collection will help improve data-source consistency, address disparities between Member States, align approaches to calculating carbon, provide benchmarks for different building types and enable the setting of WLC limit values. Further, some governments have little incentive to regulate WLC as it is based on consumption (ie emissions from manufacturing and transport of imported products), whereas overall EU climate targets and most national targets are based on production (ie emissions in the country). Data in Individual Climate Action Roadmaps can populate WLC databases at the national level and inform WLC benchmarks. Linking these databases to a central database for all buildings in the EU will facilitate a harmonised and open data system enabling comparability of WLC figures across Europe. Building level National level EU level Individual Climate Action Roadmaps act as a central repository for all relevant building data. The EPBD mandates that Member States establish open-source databases with the information in Individual Climate Action Roadmaps being used to populate national WLC databases. EU-level database with information from national databases enables the setting of EU-wide benchmarks and WLC targets.
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