EuroACE key messages to Energy Ministers meeting informally in Dublin on 24th April:

An ambitious 2030 climate and energy policy is necessary in order to provide policy predictability to businesses and to stimulate investor confidence. A binding energy efficiency target is essential and a target for energy efficiency improvements to buildings must be a key element of the target given it is the end-use sector with the highest savings potential;

Structural barriers to investment in energy efficient renovation must be removed. The Copenhagen Economics Study released in 2012, recommended that Member State governments could address four structural barriers and hence stimulate investments. These relate to changes to rent regulation, redirecting financial subsidies for fossil fuels, improving public accounting and budget management rules and better risk management instruments for investors;

Now is the best time to initiate ambitious energy efficient renovation programmes as interest rates in the EU are at an historical low and there is significant capacity in the labour market as a result of high unemployment.

EuroACE, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, was invited to address the closed working session of the Informal Energy Ministers Meetings in Dublin on the 24th April.

A binding and meaningful 2030 target for energy efficiency is an important milestone towards achieving the EU’s ambitions for the creation of a competitive and sustainable low-carbon economy by 2050. Within that framework, a binding sectoral target for buildings, which are responsible for around 40% of energy consumption in the EU, is essential.

Given the importance of ensuring that there is a long-term, stable policy framework that will build investor confidence in the subject of highly ambitious energy efficiency for buildings and thus encourage a transformation in the construction sector, EuroACE is calling for a binding EU energy efficiency target for 2030 as a key element of the Post-2020 policy debate.

By setting energy efficiency in buildings as a key funding objective of the ERDF Report (agreed in the July REGI vote), Members of the European Parliament called for an agreement on EU regional spending that will deliver positive benefits in terms of job creation, increased energy savings and reduced regional imbalances across Europe. In the upcoming trilogues, the Council must uphold the Parliament’s agreement to stimulate the energy efficiency market if the EU is to meet its Climate and Growth objectives. This can only be achieved if high percentages of ERDF Funding are targeted at energy efficiency in buildings.

An industrial alliance of 17 companies under the umbrella EuroACE urges the national representatives in the trilogue NOT to reduce the percentages of climate thematic concentration agreed in the European Parliament to 22% in more developed regions and to 12% in less developed region, particularly if the scope is broadened to include ‘sustainable urban transport’.

– Why Limit Sustainable Transport to Urban Areas?

– Why Maintain or Increase the Percentages of 22% and 12%?

– Why Allocate ERDF Funding to Energy Efficiency in Buildings?

– How to Ensure the EU Regions will Reap the Returns from Energy Efficiency in Buildings?

Maintain High Climate Thematic Concentration Percentages aimed at energy efficiency in buildings to stimulate jobs and growth, increase energy savings and reduce regional imbalances in Europe.

The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED 2012/27/EU) is the headline piece of legislation on which the EU is pinning its hopes for the achievement of the 2020 energy efficiency target. If its provisions are ambitiously and fully implemented, then it will contribute about 75% of the energy efficiency improvements needed to reach the 2020 target.

Within the text, there are several elements that relate to buildings. To ensure that the potential of energy efficiency in the built environment is reached, EuroACE has compiled in this paper, its “TOP 10” issues for implementation of the EED. These are given in descending order of priority as seen from the point of view of the member companies of EuroACE in the expectation that our input can help in the implementation work of this important Directive.

EuroACE, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, strongly favours reduced VAT rates for the renovation of existing buildings and calls on the European Commission to maintain this measure in its current review of EU VAT legislation.

In line with its Climate Objectives and Growth Agenda, the EU has placed requirements on buildings through the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and through the recently adopted Energy Efficiency Directive. The use of reduced VAT rates facilitates the application of these Directives by stimulating labour intensive renovation activities across the EU.

Increasing renovation rates from the current average of about 1.2% to about 3%, would not only help the EU to achieve its climate objective goals but would also provide a wide-range of multiple benefits in terms of job creation, lower energy bills and reduced fuel poverty.