At ROCKWOOL we emphasize our commitment to sustainability and climate care though various initiatives aimed at reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Our insulation products are designed to significantly enhance energy efficiency in buildings. By improving thermal performance, our stone wool products can reduce energy needs for heating and cooling by up to 70-90%, allowing buildings to save more energy than what is consumed during the insulation’s production within just a few months. The stone wool insulation sold in 2023 is projected to save over 818 TWh of energy over its lifetime, equivalent to the annual electricity use of more than 68 million homes.

Andrzej Kielar (Managing Director ROCKWOOL CEE) repeatedly emphasized during the discussions held at Renovate Europe Day 2024 that, given the many challenges of the modern world, we cannot afford to do nothing about deep renovation of building stock. Let us therefore take advantage of the unique opportunity presented by the wave of building renovations to improve the comfort of our lives and have a positive impact on the natural environment now and in the future.

Our involvement into energy efficiency aligns closely with the objectives of EPBD directive. It plays a crucial role in supporting the EU net zero efforts by establishing energy efficiency and emissions standards for buildings. Why is it important? Let’s recall basic facts. Buildings use about 40% of global energy, 25% of global water, 40% of global resources, and they emit approximately 1/3 of GHG emissions.

We spend a large part of our lives, work and time after work in buildings. That is why they are so important to us and the climate. Never before has so much attention been paid to the building stock. The implementation of the EPBD is a unique opportunity for all of us to make our homes, workplaces and places of rest healthy, environmentally friendly and financially efficient. To achieve this, it is enough to once and effectively perform thermal modernization of buildings that need it. The solutions we develop at ROCKWOOL are those that stay with buildings throughout the period in which we use them. Very often, the modernization of building stock is viewed through the prism of costs rather than benefits. And there are many, as we will outline later in this article.

Social benefits of thermal modernization

There is nothing more valuable than health. Healthy people live and work in healthy buildings, because only such buildings provide the right conditions for life. And what are the facts? 75% of buildings in the EU are low energy buildings. 85% of them were built before 2000. These buildings will remain in our landscape for a long time. And it is worth taking care of them so that they provide us with warmth in winter and protect us from increasingly frequent heat waves in summer. Underheated and overheated buildings can be a source of illness and significantly reduce the comfort of life and work.

Environmental benefits of thermal modernization

The climate crisis is the greatest challenge of the 21st century and there is no more important global effort than the one related to reducing GHG emissions. Without decarbonization of the building stock, the energy transformation and achieving climate neutrality will not be effective. Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and thus reducing energy demand also means reducing harmful smog, which contributes to several hundred thousand premature deaths in the EU every year.

Economic benefits of thermal modernization

As mentioned earlier, deep thermal modernization translates into lower energy consumption and thus a significant reduction in the bills related to the maintenance of individual buildings. This is particularly important in view of the alarming statistics on energy poverty in the EU. Approximately 50 million households in the EU are estimated to live in energy poverty, struggling to afford adequate energy services necessary for heating, cooling, and lighting their homes. This represents about 14.6% of EU households reporting inadequate energy expenditures.