The building sector has been identified as a sector with large potential for delivering energy savings and mitigation of GHG emissions. Yet it has been unclear what the specific role of building energy efficiency codes play in achieving these savings. Thererfore, between July 2011 and June 2012 the Global Buildings Performance Network, facilitated the development of scenarios for energy savings and GHG mitigation related to thermal energy efficiency in buildings and an international survey of the impact of policy best-practices.

This is a revised report from the initial Building energy codes issued in year 2008. IEA and UNDP joint report shares best practices and lessons learned among IEA member countries and non-IEA countries in improving energy efficiency in the building sector.

This study is organized with a chapter devoted to each APEC member economy, which seeks to detail:

Recognising both the recent surge in interest in low carbon refurbishments of residential buildings and the diversity of emergent terminology and perspectives, the authors set out definitions for key terms and frame a discussion of the phenomenon of refurbishments. The paper focuses on owner-occupied detached homes that dominate Australia’s existing residential building stock.

Creating sustainable cities requires rethinking the built environment, a fundamental component of mitigating the environmental impacts of buildings. To evaluate this, stakeholders in Australia increasingly rely on third party verification via green building rating schemes. These rating schemes address and encourage a variety of green features which are incorporated into the design and construction of a building.

This (English translation) document lists 35 Japanese cities and prefectures and efforts therein to become low-carbon cities.

Each record gives a number of government-instigated projects being undertaken and a government contact person.

Each record indicates how the city or prefecture is accredited as one- or more- of these:

JCM, Future City. Eco-Model City, ICLEI,C40

The energy benefits of increased code compliance have generally been viewed through the lens of energy savings – kWh and therms. Peak demand reduction as an additional benefit of increased code compliance is a comparatively unexplored area – despite a general acknowledgement that there are electric demand savings (kW) associated with increased energy code compliance. The ability to include peak demand reduction as a component of the code compliance savings has important and significant benefits.

The energy demand in the residential building sector represents a big challenge for Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia. Within our project entitled “Support for Low Emission Development in South East Europe”, the authors developed residential building topologies and using them as an input, designed and applied bottom-up simulation models to assess the impact of decarbonisation policy packages applied to this sector. The models were prepared in co-operation with national policymakers in the LEAP software, for which they were trained in a parallel project.

In 2009 the Washington State Legislature updated the legislation authorizing the Washington State Energy Code (WSEC). In the process, the legislature also set a goal that the total energy of new buildings would be reduced 70% over the performance of buildings built to the 2006 WSEC by the 2031 code cycle. To meet this ambitious goal the Washington State Building Code Council (SBCC) was authorized to develop incremental steps that would achieve this goal over the eight code cycles anticipated by 2031. The first step on that path was developed for the 2009 WSEC.

The purpose of this paper is to present data and discussion on a critical review of a sample of multi-storey and mixed use residential buildings in the subtropical city of Brisbane in order to understand how contemporary buildings are achieving local authority policy outcomes and resident-identified attributes of locally-appropriate subtropical living.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a FOA (Funding Opportunity Announcement) to conduct residential energy code field studies using a radically different methodology from previous studies. Historically, studies defined and measured “compliance” as the portion of all code requirements being met on a house-by-house basis. Compliance was assumed to be a surrogate for energy, but that connection was never empirically established.

In Australia, there is an increasing interest in using extensive green roofs to make buildings more sustainable and provide a number of social, ecological, aesthetic and thermal benefits to cities. The potential of green roofs to reduce building energy consumption has been extensively studied overseas in a variety of different climates. However, in Australia the green roof industry is relatively new. There is still very little information on the thermal properties of Australian green roofs and their performance.

A significant body of research confirms the major contribution that improved building performance can make to national energy and greenhouse abatement policies. The challenge facing governments is how best to realize the potential of energy efficient buildings. This paper reviews the effectiveness of economic instruments for building energy policy compared with alternative interventions such as building regulation and information campaigns.

The aim of this report, prepared by the Joint Research Centre of the European Union (JRC) is to summarise the efforts undertaken by EU Member States in order to meet the requirements of Article 4 of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), to provide an overview of the policies and measures chosen and of the overall strengths and weakness, and to identify best practices.

Today, buildings account for 40 percent of the total energy used in the United States, with building owners and occupants spending roughly $450 billion on energy bills each year. Despite the size of the opportunity for improvement, building efficiency is not highly valued in the real estate market, largely due to a lack of available information about building performance and energy use. A growing number of jurisdictions in the U.S. are passing energy benchmarking and transparency policies to address this information gap.

Currently, 37 states, covering almost 90% of the US population, have adopted at least the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). Adoption is only the first step to more efficient buildings. To generate the promised energy savings, builders need to comply with the code. There have been many studies done to evaluate code compliance over the years, however, different studies use different methodologies; making it difficult to compare within or across states as well as across time.

Improvements in building energy codes cannot be fully realized unless targeted stakeholder education, training and outreach is provided to support increased understanding of and compliance with the minimum requirements. With Michigan’s adoption of the 2012 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), an analysis determined statewide annual energy savings of approximately 480,000 MMBtu and $4 million in annual utility bill savings for homeowners from bringing below code residential new construction up to minimum requirements.

Most large developing countries have a building energy code or other building efficiency policies. However, testing and rating systems to assess the energy performance of building materials often lag behind these codes and policies. Building materials play a key role in setting the energy footprint of a building. Poorly performing or poorly labeled materials can result in higher energy use and lack of market incentives to produce high efficiency products.

Does the adoption of new energy codes impact construction activity? As jurisdictions throughout the country continue to adopt increasingly stringent codes, this question is asked time and again. In 2015 the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) and the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA) each purchased and then independently undertook an analysis of Construction Market Data (CMD) and publically available U.S.

Low-income energy efficiency programs are an important component of ratepayer-funded efficiency portfolios throughout the country, but there is room for improvement and expansion. In this report the authors address the challenges and opportunities of low-income programs that target single-family homes. This report includes a survey of the low-income program landscape and advice on scaling up energy efficiency in this sector.