EEB’s first phase (2006-2010): Delivering an understanding

During its first phase of work from 2006 to 2010, the EEB project looked into the building sector’s role within the international energy efficiency landscape.

The project’s first achievement was the publication of the Facts & Trends summary report, which combines the findings from existing research and stakeholder dialogues during hearings, workshops, and forums with a breakthrough market research study that measures the stakeholder perceptions of sustainable buildings around the world.

The report sets out to establish a baseline of current facts and trends that will be used in the coming months in scenario planning and modeling approaches to assess the needed and prioritized actions for change to affect buildings’ energy consumption.

The project’s second milestone was the publications of its second report, Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Transforming the Market, 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 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:

• Strengthen building codes and energy labeling for increased transparency;
   
• Use subsidies and price signals to incentivize energy efficient investments;
   
• Encourage integrated design approaches and innovation;
   
• Develop and use advanced technology to enable energy saving behavior;
   
• Develop workforce capacity for energy savings;
   
• Mobilize for an energy-aware culture.

Finally, a roadmap was 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. A pdf version of this tool can be downloaded here, but if you prefer to receive the interactive tool (CD), please contact Lucie Ielpo-Garnier