Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

This Directive is the most important legislative instrument of recent years for improving the energy efficiency of Europe’s buildings. However, it contains one article which, if amended, would significantly improve the Directive’s impact. Article 6 requires governments to ensure that whenever a building with a useful floor area of over 1,000 square metres undergoes major renovation, its energy performance be upgraded to a minimum standard. This is a wasted opportunity, as buildings with more than 1,000 square metres are only a minority of the building stock. Two recent studies by Ecofys have shown that if Article 6 were extended to cover all buildings, an extra 45 million tonnes of CO2 per annum would be saved in the year 2010.  The Commission’s Energy Efficiency Action Plan of October 2006 states that the Commission will propose “lowering significantly” this threshold in 2009.  Glass for Europe urges the Commission to bring forward this revision more quickly, and to extend the scope of Article 6 to all buildings, irrespective of size.

* Mitigation of CO2 emissions from the building stock, 2004; and Cost-effective climate change protection in the building stock of the new EU member states, 2005.