Abstract: All forms of economic production and exchange involve the use of energy directly and in the transformation of materials. Until recently, cheap and seemingly limitless fossil energy has allowed most of society to ignore the importance of contributions to the economic process from the biophysical world as well as the potential limits to growth. This paper centres on assessing the energy costs of modern day society and its relation to GDP.

Mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes strictly govern the energy consumption of new buildings in China. As the promotion of building energy efficiency in China has increased in recent years, compliance with mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes has also improved, increasing from less than 10% in 2000 to nearly 100% in 2012, a remarkable achievement. However, because the promotion of energy efficiency strategies in China has followed a unique pattern, some researchers doubt these statistics.

The content discussed how to go about developing policies that prioritised energy efficiency for building by consulting with key stakeholders. The purpose of the slides is to teach emerging professionals in the emerging economies about how targets and policies can be used in tandem to meet energy and development goals. This course will provide examples of how targets have been created to meet targets and how country goals can be met by setting targets and complementary building energy efficiency policies.

Building sector accounts for a large percentage of the total national energy consumption in most of the countries, thus it is critical to formulate and implement appropriate energy saving policies in the building sector. This paper focuses on energy saving policies in the building sector by conducting a comparative study between Japan and China. The exiting Building Energy Saving (BES) policies, actual effectiveness of policy implementation and obstacles to the effective policy implementation are compared in sequence.

Buildings currently account for over 35% of Vietnam’s total energy consumption. Buildings codes could result in 30-40% buildings energy savings. The Vietnam Building Energy Code (VBEEC) was introduced in 2013 and now scheduled for revision in 2016.

In 2016, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) provided the following key recommendations for the revision of the Vietnam Building Energy Efficiency Code (VBEEC):

This paper quantifies the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions co-benefits associated with water, waste and transportation usage in certified green commercial office buildings in California. The study compares the measured values of water, waste and transportation usage self-reported by office buildings certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system for Existing Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED EBOM) to baseline values of conventional California office buildings.

In the absence of a strong national code or a gap between code adoption and implementation, cities can take initiative. One option is to engage with international platforms and forums.

The United States (US) Clean Power Plan established state-specific carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction goals for fossil fuel-fired electricity generating units (EGUs). States may achieve these goals through multiple mechanisms, including measures that can achieve equivalent CO2 reductions such as residential energy efficiency, which will have important co-benefits. Here, we develop state-resolution simulations of the economic, health, and climate benefits of increased residential insulation, considering EGUs and residential combustion.

With this Communication, released in February 2016, the European Commission presents the first strategy to optimise buildings' and industries' heating and cooling in order to tackle the massive use of energy, particularly fossil fuels, in the sector. Heating and cooling accounts for 50% of the energy consumption in the European Union, and renewables account for just 18% of this.

The contribution of buildings to climate change has become widely acknowledged. On 3 December 2015, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) held the first ‘buildings day’ at COP 21 (the UN Climate Change Conference) devoted to the decarbonization of the building stock. There are several forms of negative contributions that buildings make to climate change, but high on the list are embodied and operational energy demands, which largely depend on fossil fuels and result in greenhouse gas emissions.

In Europe, the latest updates in the directive on the energy performance of buildings introduced two fundamental concepts, namely the cost-optimal energy requirements and the nearly-zero energy buildings (nZEB). Although these concepts are related, the cost-optimal is focused on costs while the nZEB prioritise the energy performance and the use of renewable energy harvested on site.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is a leading organization globally on building energy codes and standards. PNNL has served as the technical lead for DOE’s Building Energy Codes Program in the U.S. and worked on building energy codes in many countries including Vietnam, India, China, and Russia.

Regulations governing the energy efficiency of new buildings have become a cornerstone of US environmental policy. California enacted the first such codes in 1978 and has tightened them every few years since. I evaluate the resulting energy savings three ways: comparing energy used by houses constructed under different standards, controlling for building and occupant characteristics; examining how energy use varies with outdoor temperatures; and comparing energy used by houses of different vintages in California to that same difference in other states.

This presentation shows a brief overview of some of the principles and practices and stakeholder engagement related to building energy codes. It also includes a brief example of the Australian government that has engaged in code assessment. There's a commitment to continually engage with stakeholders, both through the development and revision process, technical committees, working groups, and the stakeholder surveys that they've done recently to understand implementation.

Global population ageing has significant implications for public policy in areas such as health, housing and economic security. The notion of housing as a public health issue is not new, yet very little research has examined the links between housing specifically built for older people, energy performance and occupant health and economic security.

European legislation makes nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEBs) a standard by 2020. The technology is available and proven; however, the large-scale uptake of nZEB construction and renovation remains a challenge. ZEBRA2020 monitored the market uptake of nZEBs across Europe and provided data and knowledge on how to reach the nZEB standard. This information was structured and analysed to derive recommendations. ZEBRA2020 covers 17 European countries and almost 90% of the EU/EEA building stock and population.

The content of these slides was to identify, prioritise and quantify these policy options for interventions to rapidly increase energy efficiency during the change of government and the incoming government. The purpose is to teach emerging professionals in the emerging economies about building energy efficiency policies that can be used to reduce energy use in buildings. This course will include information that has been examined in IEA’s policy pathway series and the sustainable buildings book.  Trainers: Brian Dean, Ksenia Petrichenko and Adam Hinge

Abstract

Building energy codes lay out the minimum requirements for the envelope (insulation, windows and air sealing), mechanical equipment and lighting of a building (residential and commercial) in terms of energy efficiency/conservation for new construction or major renovations. National model energy codes are updated every three years to incorporate continual improvements in building efficiency in a collaborative, transparent process by a diverse group of stakeholders.

Sustainability assessment tools aim to promote high sustainability outcomes in residential buildings, ensuring less consumption of water, energy and less emission of greenhouse gases. However, existing literature often presents variations between the estimated outcomes from the assessment tools and actual outcomes after building occupation. Research suggests that actual energy consumption could be significantly influenced by resident behaviour in addition to the dwelling conditions and the energy efficiency of appliances.