Practical Approaches to the Building Renovation Challenge

Practical Approaches to the Building Renovation Challenge is a paper that sets out the findings of a contractors’ workshop featuring expert researchers, architects, engineers, and other building professionals. The workshop took place in December 2015 in Brussels hosted by the Horizon 2020 Energy (Buildings) team of the EASME in conjunction with www.buildup.eu, the European portal for energy efficient buildings. The participants represented some 40 EU-funded projects on energy effiicient buildings supported under Horizon 2020, 7th Framework Programme (FP7), Intelligent Energy Europe, and other regional and cross-border programmes such as the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF).
Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and over a third of CO2 emissions in the EU. Most of the buildings that will exist in the year 2050 are already built. Renovation of the existing building stock is therefore key to meeting our long term energy and climate goals. In practice however, this is very challenging due to a variety of technical, regulatory and other barriers. Action is required, including more research, demonstration of innovative solutions, and facilitation of their roll-out into the mass market.