EuroACE organised a conference in Slovenia in May with the aim to present to the countries of South East Europe (SEE) the main changes to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Participants learnt about the best practices from across the region, exchanged experiences, and finally signed the Ljubljana Declaration –a call for greater ambition on energy renovation of buildings in South East Europe.
All corners of the EU must implement the amended Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) that came into force in July 2018, and that must be transposed at national level by March 2020. A key element of the changes requires all Member States to devise, and put into action, long-term renovation strategies to transform their building stock to be highly energy efficient and decarbonised by 2050. Countries where the energy saving potential of the building stock is highest, have the most to gain from being ambitious in their strategies. This is clearly the case for countries in South East Europe.
“Knowing that without good implementation, our work on EU legislation will have no meaning for people all across Europe, we regularly organise national or regional workshops to learn about the challenges on the ground in the Member States, and help them with best practice sharing”. The amendment of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is one of the most important changes that has occurred in the EU buildings sector in the last 15 years. At last, EU legislators have recognised that the biggest challenge in the buildings sector is not the standards we use for our new buildings but the ones we use to renovate our existing ones. In part because of hard work by EuroACE and others, awareness has been raised around the fact that our existing buildings consume more than 40% of all primary energy in the EU and emit more than 36% of our CO2 emissions, said Adrian Joyce, Secretary General of EuroACE
https://euroace.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Slovenia_Workshop_Press_Release.pdf
