This working paper brings together the findings of the first stage in this study, which focusses on the identification of 'macro-objectives' for the environmental performance of the EU building stock. This stage is intended to provide an initial 'top down' view of what the strategic priorities (the 'macro-objectives') should be for the building sector.

Executive Summary Scope and objectives This report provides the findings from the stakeholder-mapping stage the EnergyFit Homes Initiative phase 1. The objectives of this phase were to develop a map of the relevant stakeholders and to understand their perspectives of the need, scope and implantation of a national home energy efficiency information framework. A secondary objective of this stage was to begin to build consensus and a coalition of support for options to be built on in the next stage. This is the penultimate research stage of Phase 1.

In summary: 

1. As a result of Colombia’s new green codes, buildings are expected to consume 10 to 45 percent less energy and water. These reductions will avoid nearly 190,000 metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2021, helping big cities like Bogota achieve a goal to reduce 2019’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 16 percent compared to 2007.2,3

To maximise the benefits from its application of BIM to infrastructure projects within its annual capital program, this framework will support the effective use of BIM across Queensland Government infrastructure delivery agencies. A focus of the framework includes BIM capability development across government and industry.

USGBC local communities around the country are helping cities jumpstart their building performance benchmarking efforts. And the results are pretty exciting. After four years of benchmarking in New York City, buildings there are using almost 15 percent less energy according to MIT professor David Hsu, one of the most widely recognized experts in energy benchmarking analysis. Learn more in this Benchmarking in Cities brief.

Potential gains from improving energy efficiency are substantial — not only in terms of saving energy and combating climate change, but also in terms of contributing to an array of other co-benefits, including improving human health and creating jobs. We asked Tim Farrell, Senior Advisor at the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency, what works best when it comes to boosting energy efficiency. He stressed that targeted policy measures and sufficient resources to support implementation and compliance are among a number of critical ingredients for success.

This article is part of our Urban Expeditions series, an initiative made possible by a grant from United Technologies to the National Geographic Society. As the world’s urban population expands, architects and planners are mapping out ways to make cities more sustainable. Cities produce a vast amount of emissions and waste, putting a strain on both human and ecological health. But our buildings themselves may hold a solution.

Energy transition of the EU building stock, from being an energy waster to being highly energy efficient and an energy producer, is a prerequisite for Europe’s carbon neutrality, as well as for meeting Europe’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving these targets requires shifting the emerging energy renovation market from a market of step-by-step and shallow energy renovation financed by grants to a market of industrialized and holistic energy renovation leading to zero energy buildings financed by long-term loans.

The earth is on a trajectory to warm 3-4°C by 2100. This heat map details how that rise in temperatures will affect major metropolitan hubs.

Smart Cities Dive took a closer look at how this would affect six major metropolitan hubs, and what the respective mayors and city leaders are doing to curb climate impacts as the clock ticks.

State-level building energy codes have been around for over 40 years, but recent empirical research has cast doubt on their effectiveness. A potential virtue of standards-based policies is that they may be less regressive than explicit taxes on energy consumption. However, this conjecture has not been tested empirically in the case of building energy codes.

New research finds that people are willing to pay more for energy efficient housing, making the case for a mandatory national rating system for existing homes. 

“Location, location, location” is a time-honoured mantra for pricing property, but research shows buyers and renters are also prepared to pay a premium for energy efficiency.

Light, reflective surfaces can have a dramatic impact in cooling the surrounding air – in cities, but in the countryside too. Whitewashed walls, arrays of photovoltaic cells, and stubble-filled fields can all provide local relief during the sweltering decades ahead. But policymakers beware. It doesn’t always work like that. There can be unintended consequences, both on temperature and other aspects of climate, like rainfall. Even local geoengineering needs to be handled with care.

Designers can use superior building design and energy management strategies to create buildings that produce at least as much energy as they consume. These are called zero energy buildings (ZEBs). ZEBs exist in the United States and Canada now; however building energy codes will have to be continuously improved to achieve widespread ZEBs by 2030, a common goal of many cities and some states.

Buildings that emit no greenhouse gas emissions during their operation are vital to meeting the SDGs and Paris Agreement targets. But in the past, zero carbon buildings have been assumed to be only attainable by technologically advanced or wealthy countries. New WRI research finds there are policy pathways to reach zero carbon buildings regardless of location or development status. The report identifies eight pathways countries can take to reach zero carbon buildings by reducing energy demand and cleaning energy supply.

In 1978, California adopted building codes designed to reduce the energy used for heating, cooling, and water heating in buildings. Using a rich dataset of hourly electricity consumption for 158,112 California houses during 2012-13, this paper estimates that single-family homes built from 1980 through 1982 consumed on average 13% less electricity for cooling than premises constructed between 1975 through 1977. This estimate is similar to projected cooling-energy savings made using engineering models at the time the codes were enacted.