Dublin, 15th March 2024: The new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) can help to lower energy bills, take people out of energy poverty and create high-quality jobs, MEP Ciarán Cuffe said today as he attended a panel discussion in Dublin on the landmark law, hosted by the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) and the European Parliament Liaison Office.
“The quality of the buildings that we live our lives in has a real impact on us as people and also on the planet. If we deliver on the aims of this Directive, we will lower energy bills for everyone, take people out of energy poverty, and significantly reduce emissions by gradually improving the energy performance of Europe’s buildings,” said Mr Cuffe, MEP for Dublin, who served as lead negotiator on the EPBD for the European Parliament, which approved the law on Tuesday.
Mr Cuffe continued: “Industry has a significant role to play on this decarbonisation journey, which has strong potential to create thousands of high-quality, local jobs across the European economy. I am confident that we can upskill workers, clear supply chain bottlenecks, and unlock funding to accelerate this transition towards a climate neutral building stock by 2050.”
Mr Cuffe was joined in welcoming the new law by Seán Kelly, MEP for Ireland South, and lead negotiator on the EPBD for the European People’s Party, the parliament’s largest political group. “The EPBD will make it easier for people to renovate their homes, ensuring our buildings consume less energy and rely on cheaper and greener renewable sources. After two years of work, the deal on the table now is a balanced and practical agreement that injects affordability into Europe’ Renovation wave,” he said.
The new EPBD contains significant new measures to help decarbonise Europe’s buildings. These include:
- Member states must provide finance and support for deep renovation and aim to deliver a ‘zero emissions building stock’ by 2050.
- They must also introduce renovation passports – tailored roadmaps that allow building owners to undertake deep renovations step-by-step, over time.
- Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) will require member states to gradually improve the energy efficiency of their existing building stock.
- Tenants must be protected against the risk of eviction following a retrofit.
- A new solar mandate aims to dramatically increase the number of buildings that produce solar power.
- Fossil fuel boilers will be phased out by 2040.
- From 2030, member states must measure, disclose, and limit embodied carbon – that is, the carbon associated with the construction, maintenance, and demolition of buildings. To date, building regulations in Ireland have only covered operational carbon (the emissions associated with heating, cooling and lighting our buildings).
- From 2030, all new buildings must also be Zero Emission Buildings (ZEBs). These must not produce any emissions on site and must use only a very small amount of energy, preferably supplied by renewables or district heating.
The new EPBD is one of the key laws in the EU’s “Fit for 55” package of legislation, which aims to cut the Union’s carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, as part of the European Green Deal.
Introducing the panel discussion on the EPBD, which was held at Europe House in Dublin, IGBC CEO Pat Barry said: “The new EPBD can help to kick-start the renovation wave that is urgently needed to decarbonise Ireland’s building stock. No matter how good our new buildings are, we will never meet our climate goals unless we dramatically increase our rate of energy retrofit to tackle emissions from existing buildings. This is also a great opportunity to improve people’s health and wellbeing by tackling energy poverty, improving indoor air quality, and making our buildings warmer and more comfortable.”
Mr Barry continued: “This directive also gives Ireland a unique opportunity to lead on embodied carbon. Ireland’s built environment is responsible for 37% of national carbon emissions, of which 23% is operational carbon and 14% is embodied carbon. But until now embodied carbon has been the elephant in the room of our built environment emissions, left unregulated.”
Meanwhile Dublin City Architect Ali Grehan, a panellist at the Europe House discussion, also welcomed the new law, stating: “Half a million homes will be built in Ireland up to 2040, and at the same time we need to dramatically scale up the pace of renovation. With its focus on whole life carbon and deep renovation, the new EPBD can set us on a path towards a net zero built environment, and towards turning the many older, colder and derelict buildings in our towns and cities into warm, comfortable and sustainable homes.”
Following approval by the European Parliament, the directive will now go back to the European Council for formal adoption in the next two months.
