The European Parliament’s Report on the Energy Roadmap 2050 stresses that the reduction of energy use in buildings must be a “central element” of the EU’s long-term energy policy, and calls for a reduction in the energy consumption of the existing building stock “by 80% by 2050 compared to 2010 levels”, in line with the Renovate Europe Campaign vision.

The own-initiative report on the Commission’s Energy Roadmap 2050 was adopted in Plenary today, 14th March 2013, following a vote in the ITRE Committee on 24th January.

“There is no doubt about it – we urgently need to address the energy efficient renovation of the EU building stock. With poor performing buildings, we are not only wasting energy and money, but we are also missing out on a golden opportunity to deliver on the EU’s climate change, jobs, growth and energy security goals” explained Shadow Rapporteur Fiona Hall (ALDE – UK). “With this Roadmap, Parliament is sending out a strong message to the Commission and to the Member States to take decisive measures to substantially scale up the rate and quality of building renovation in Europe.”

This ambitious yet achievable building renovation target, which received cross-party support in the ITRE Committee vote in January, is recognized as essential to provide market certainty needed in order to unleash investment in the building renovation sector. This building renovation target is in line with the call for a set of mutually reinforcing post-2020 targets for greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency, also enshrined in the Parliament’s Roadmap.

The need for a long-term target for the buildings sector was already established as a cornerstone of the EU Roadmap for moving towards a Low-Carbon economy in 2050, agreed in 2011, and is re-iterated in the recently adopted Energy Efficiency Directive, which calls on Member States to adopt ambitious longterm building renovation strategies.

“Over and over again, we are hearing the need to establish a long-term target for the building sector in order to unlock investment. This call for a long-term vision for reducing the energy demand in buildings must be taken into account as the Commission considers new energy and climate actions post-2020”, highlighted Adrian Joyce, Campaign Director of the Renovate Europe Campaign.