Europe is facing a double challenge: reaching energy, climate, and circularity goals while also ensuring affordable, accessible, and healthy housing. Too often, these two challenges are put against one another. However, for a built environment that works for people and nature, the upcoming European Affordable Housing Plan (EAHP) should take advantage of how environmental and social aspects can work together. With fellow experts from Natuur & Milieu and Lund University, we look at how tackling inefficient use of empty or underused buildings can ensure affordable housing and reduce environmental impacts.
Buy Better to Build Better welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback and targeted evidence over the importance of effectively designing the upcoming Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act.
Decarbonising how we heat and cool our homes is a central part of the transition to a low-carbon built environment. Responsible for a staggering 80% of the energy consumed by EU households, less than one-quarter of that comes from renewables. Most heating and cooling is still powered by fossil fuels – but that must change. ECOS has joined forces with a new partner to help make it happen: the Cool Heating Coalition.
Why stalling on the transition to clean heating in the EU will only help fossil fuel companies. A mythbuster by ECOS with the Coolproducts campaign.
Standards are essential to the well-functioning of the European internal market. This is not different for the construction sector, which heavily relies on standards to assess the performance of products placed and traded on the internal market. With the right set of standards in place, clean technologies and innovation become a key vector for decarbonisation.
The steel sector is the most carbon-intensive in the world, responsible for 7% of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To decarbonise, individual companies need to commit to climate targets – and these need to be ambitious enough. The Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) recently updated its guidelines and targets for the steel sector, which now has a much stronger foundation for lowering emissions – but improvements must not stop there.
Today, the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee voted to speed up decarbonisation by introducing requirements that would cover the environmental impact of cement in the proposed Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)[1].
Member States and other stakeholders meet today to debate ecodesign rules for ‘stand-alone’ fossil fuel boilers. Raising energy efficiency requirements for heating appliances could effectively phase out fossil fuel operated boilers, since they are significantly less efficient than other solutions, like electric heat pumps. If the EU wants to respect its legal commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and mitigate the current energy crisis, the moment to act is now.
Phase out of ‘stand-alone’ fossil fuel boilers via EU product policy: a chance to make renewable heating the norm, decrease Europe’s energy dependence, and mitigate energy crises. Read our joint letter to national energy and environment ministries, and EU Member State representatives of the Ecodesign Consultation Forum.
ECOS, with industry players, associations, and other NGOs sent a letter to Member State representatives in the Council with recommendations for an environmentally ambitious Construction Products Regulation (CPR).
ECOS is co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
