“EEB in Action 2010”

“Everyone concerned with buildings has to change the way they think about energy.”

Buildings already represent 40% of primary energy use globally and if we include the energy consumed in manufacturing, steel, cement, aluminum and glass used in building construction, this number grows to more than 50%. Energy consumption in buildings is projected to rise substantially in the world’s most populous and fastest growing countries, such as China and India.

The knowledge and technology available today could achieve these dramatic reductions in building energy consumption, but it is happening only at a snail’s pace. Market and policy failures and behavioral barriers stand in the way of achieving the huge progress that is both necessary and possible. The rapid growth of new buildings in developing countries is part of the challenge, but the low rate of replacement of inefficient buildings in developed countries means it is not enough just to create new, low-energy buildings.

Its second report, Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Transforming the Market was launched in 2009. The report is based on a unique simulation model that analyzes the energy use of thousands of building types and millions of existing and new buildings, both commercial and residential. This model shows how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60% by 2050, which is essential to meeting global climate change targets. But this will require immediate action to transform the building sector.

The project focused on four key sub-sectors that collectively use more than half all energy in buildings – single-family homes, multi-family homes, offices and retail – in 6 key markets – Brazil, China, Europe, India, Japan and the US.

The model produces five key outputs:

1. Energy use and CO2 emissions
   
   
2. Value of the business opportunity
   
   
3. Costs and benefits to governments and building owners
   
   
4. The types of building technologies that a given market will most likely buy
   
   
5. How policy-makers can best achieve the highest reduction in energy use and CO2 emissions

The EEB project was able to show the market response to various combinations of financial, technical, behavioral and policy options, identifying the optimum mix to achieve transformation for each market studied and accounting for regional differences such as climate and building design. The project’s resulting report makes six principle recommendations that have to be implemented in an integrated effort:

1. Strengthen building codes and energy labeling for increased transparency
   
   
2. Use subsidies and price signals to incentivize energyefficient investments
   
   
3. Encourage integrated design approaches and innovation
   
   
4. Develop and use advanced technology to enable energysaving behavior
   
   
5. Develop workforce capacity for energy savings
   
   
6. Mobilize for an energy-aware culture.

A roadmap has been drawn setting out the key actions in the short and medium term for the seven groups that can contribute to meeting this challenge, ranging from investors to government authorities. The roadmap is an interactive tool as an addendum to the main report, Transforming the Market, and can also be found on the WBCSD’s website at www.wbcsd.org/web/eeb-roadmap.htm.

Transforming the Market has received a lot of attention worldwide through EEB outreach activities, media and events. The report has been translated into 7 languages (Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) and has been downloaded from the WBCSD website some 22,000 times (figures end 2009).

The WBCSD response – EEB in Action 2010
At the end of December 2009 this phase of the EEB project came to an end. Work on EEB will continue in a new format called “EEB in Action 2010”.

This program will carry on work on the Manifesto, the modeling tool, the WBCSD/International Energy Agency (IEA) joint Roadmap and will pursue advocacy around EEB.

Project leadership and scope
EEB in Action 2010 will be led by the WBCSD and the participating Working Group company members. The work will be carried out in the different workstreams, as mentioned above.