Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

The Spring of 2022 has brought into sharp focus the urgent need to reduce the European Union’s dependence on fossil fuels. While threats from climate change and biodiversity loss have focused EU efforts on the European Green Deal, Russia’s attack on Ukraine has reinforced the need to enhance the Union’s energy security by increasing rates of energy efficiency and use of renewables. Recent price increases in oil and gas, in part a result of this war, have caused difficulty to consumers across the EU. Meanwhile, buildings are consuming 40% of the EU’s energy and almost 75% of the bloc’s building stock is energy inefficient. The recent global pandemic has also amplified the importance of homes with good indoor environmental quality. Consequently, ambitious and deep renovations of our building stock are urgently required. The revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is the key tool in achieving this.

The ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package aims to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. Buildings are responsible for 36% of these greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the inefficiency of Europe’s building stock, only 0.4-1.2% of homes are renovated each year. Unless we tackle the low renovation rate of EU buildings with a strong legislative framework, we risk not meeting our climate obligations. Therefore, actions to increase energy efficiency, reduce energy use, and decrease the use of fossil fuels in buildings, can greatly assist in achieving climate neutrality, as well as assist in restoring EU energy sovereignty. The recently announced REPowerEU plan is also helping to accelerate efforts to reduce our dependence on Russian fossil fuel in the years ahead, and tackle high energy price rises, which are fuelling inflation, and increasing energy poverty.

A revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive can reduce energy poverty, decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, and help meet our climate targets. It should promote the deployment of renewable energy in buildings, as well as incentivise deep renovations. It should include minimum energy performance requirements to raise standards for new and existing buildings. One-Stop Shops for renovation advice should provide clear and impartial information to empower consumers into taking action. Finally, targeted loans and grants will be essential to spur the renovation wave.

Social safeguards for minimum energy performance standards

Households in energy poverty often inhabit the worst performing buildings. It is not acceptable to expose the most vulnerable to the financial and health risks associated with leaky homes and inefficient appliances, causing the highest energy bills. Therefore, your rapporteur proposes to apply Minimum Energy Performance Standards first in worst performing buildings. Mandating renovations must come with safeguards for households, protecting them from burdensome debt, losing their homes or against rent increases. Costs and benefits must be shared fairly and financial support has to be mobilised, alongside the introduction of other social safeguards. Only then can we engage whole communities in renovations and ensure increasing the quality of people’s lives.

Deep renovations and renewable energy to phase out fossil fuel dependency in housing

Deep renovations play a key role in breaking free from fossil fuel dependency. It is essential that deep renovations become the standard form of renovation so that households can profit from more substantial energy savings and switch from fossil fuel based heating and cooling to renewables based systems.

The European Commission’s RePowerEU Initiative called for an increased roll out of solar energy in buildings, underlined the role of citizen led energy communities, and an expansion of heat pumps as a means of increasing EU energy sovereignty. The RePowerEU Initiative mandates solar energy installations in buildings. The Rapporteur proposes to expand the provision to include the installation of heat pumps in line with the Commission proposal to roll out 10 million heat pumps in the next five years. This will improve energy security for households, combat their dependence on increasingly volatile fossil fuel prices, and empowers them to play an active part in the energy transition

Mobilise financing the renovations, in particular to combat energy poverty

A strong and coherent financing framework is the key to unlocking the energy saving potential of the EPBD. Member States can steer investments into energy savings, energy efficiency in buildings, and renewable energy sources. This will stimulate economic recovery by creating quality jobs.

The rapporteur proposes to increase technical and practical assistance through free advicein one-stop-shops for renovations. EU funds such as the Social Climate Fund or the Recovery and Resilience Facility should be used as guarantees and as revolving funds to ensure access to financing for those groups that have difficulties in benefitting from traditional mortgages or loans. The fight against energy poverty is central to this Directive. Energy performance contracting and on-bill schemes, grants and subsidised integrated building renovation programmes at local level shall target vulnerable groups and lead to affordable or even cost neutral renovations.

Holistic renovations, indoor environmental quality and a neighbourhood approach

The rapporteur encourages Member States to adopt a neighbourhood approach to renovations that promotes energy communities, the use of renewables based district heating and cooling systems and citizen led renovations. Other aspects such as mobility, social inclusion, green spaces and water management can equally be addressed more efficiently at a district level.

Holistic renovations considering aspects such as climate footprint, vegetated surfaces or indoor environmental quality boost the wider benefits of energy renovations. For example, improving Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) goes hand in hand with improving people's health and wellbeing. People spend 90% of their time indoors, and the WHO estimates that 120,000 Europeans die prematurely every year due to poor IEQ. The rapporteur proposes to address this through measures that monitor and improve IEQ, which will lead to safer homes.

Increasing the EU’s rate of renovation makes sense both economically and environmentally. In order to achieve EU climate-neutrality, it is necessary to not only monitor but also to reduce the climate footprint of buildings, including through the choice of construction materials. Zero emission buildings must become the new standard. This ensures that homes can be self-sufficient, operate on renewables, or even produce excess energy for other uses.

If we do not seize this opportunity now, we not only fail to meet our climate obligations but also simply pass our responsibilities onto future generations.

The rapporteur thanks all those that helped in providing input to this report and looks forward to the challenge ahead.