One year on since the EU Policy Roadmap, Europe is not on track to deliver a climate-neutral built environment by 2050
The World Green Building Council’s (WorldGBC) EU Policy Whole Life Carbon Roadmap aims to help the EU accelerate the decarbonisation of buildings and construction.
The WorldGBC and 12 European Green Building Councils (GBCs) have urged the EU to act on the roadmap’s principles at a greater speed and scale. This was announced through the #BuildingLife2 project, a scheme aimed at driving transparency and accountability in the construction industry.
The EU Roadmap was unveiled at a conference in May 2022. It provides a detailed strategy for achieving climate neutrality across the European built environment. It is hoped the roadmap will help the EU become the world’s first climate-neutral continent.
Additional funding has been granted to the initiative
The EU project, called #BuildingLife, has been backed by 35 industry bodies. Ten European Green Building Councils (GBCs) will collaborate on the project to improve the built environment. The project aims to create science-based national decarbonisation roadmaps supported by industry expertise.
The project aims to address the entire lifecycle impact of buildings, including operational emissions as well as manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life phases. People can get involved with the project by getting in touch with their local Green Building Council.
#BuildingLife2 has now been launched and is accompanied by additional funding of €2.8 million from the Laudes Foundation, building on the achievements of the initial #BuildingLife project in 2022.
The GBC will generate regular progress reports on industry and political initiatives. Their European network encourages widespread support for #BuildingLife2, working towards the complete decarbonisation of Europe’s building stock by 2050.
The EU Policy Roadmap has had some positive effects
Since the EU Policy Roadmap was launched, there have been several positive outcomes. In March 2023, the European Parliament approved a revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) with earlier deadlines than the initial proposal. The implementation of national WLC limit values starting in 2030 has been agreed upon.
The commission has begun to improve the circularity buildings in the sector by launching a year-long study to develop circularity indicators for improved data collection. A study has been launched to inform future criteria for Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) as part of the End of Waste (EoW) framework. Research and innovation projects focused on addressing Whole Life Carbon will receive around €28 million in EU funding.
In 2023, Denmark implemented regulations that enforced Whole Life Carbon limits for new buildings, while Finland has adopted a new building act that will enforce mandatory WLC thresholds starting from 2025.
In the UK, the government plans to launch a consultation on the introduction of mandatory WLC reporting. In Ireland, government ministers have discussed a report on embodied carbon.
“In the time since the launch of our EU Policy Roadmap one year ago, we have seen promising progress from policymakers in their willingness to facilitate the full decarbonisation of Europe’s building stock. However, this change is still not happening quickly enough to put us on the right track to hit climate targets,” said Cristina Gamboa, CEO of WorldGBC.
“The inclusion of far-reaching provisions to boost energy efficiency improvements and tackle embodied carbon in the final text of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive must be a priority,” she concluded.
