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EuroACE 's Articles , Quotes, Interviews and Advocacy ads in the Media.

Published in Euractiv, 14 March 2013

“The current rate and quality of building renovation needs to be substantially scaled up in order to allow the EU to significantly reduce the energy consumption of the existing building stock by 80 %, relative to 2010 levels, by 2050,” the industry committee report on the EU’s Energy Roadmap 2050 reads.

Adrian Joyce, Campaign Director of the Renovate Europe Campaign agreed. “Over and over again, we are hearing the need to establish a long-term target for the building sector in order to unlock investment," he said. "This call for a long-term vision for reducing the energy demand in buildings must be taken into account as the Commission considers new energy and climate actions post-2020”.

Read full article: http://www.euractiv.com/energy-efficiency/meps-vote-80-cut-buildings-energ-news-518469

Published in Euractiv on 9 January 2013

Sources at the European Commission confirm that 19 member states are currently in breach of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which was adopted in 2002 and recast in 2010, and now face the threat of financial penalties from Brussels.

“The Commission should act quickly against the maximum amount of states in the strongest possible terms,” said Adrian Joyce, the secretary-general of EuroACE, an alliance of companies for energy efficient buildings.

“Although European leaders have heard about the contribution of highly energy efficient buildings to energy and climate goals, they are clearly not listening,” he told EurActiv.

Read full article: http://www.euractiv.com/energy-efficiency/eu-take-19-states-court-building-news-516901

The Energy Efficiency Directive of the EU (2012/27/EC) was officially published on the 14^th November 2012, triggering the transposition period for the necessary and ambitious measures on energy efficiency that it contains.  The member companies of EuroACE now look to the Member States to rapidly and accurately implement the requirements of the Directive as they relate to buildings.  This is especially so for the preparation of long-term strategies for mobilising investment in renovation, ensuring that the public sector leads by example and for the putting into place of adequate policies and incentives to ensure that the multiple benefits of increased jobs, greater well-being and higher public revenues are grasped.

Watch the Video Statement

The World Energy Outlook 2012 contains some intimidating information about the increased dependence of the EU on imported energy in 2035 when we will have to import over 80% of our needs. However it also emphasises the existence of significant mitigating potential in energy efficiency, recognising it as a resource that should be ambitiously tapped. The World Energy Outlook rightly points to the buildings sector as the sector with the highest energy efficiency potential and the company members of EuroACE urge the Member States of the EU to take this clear signal as a starting-gun for a rapid increase in energy efficient renovation of their building stock.

Watch the Video Statement

The document will assess the effectiveness of EU and member state financial incentives to find out how they could complement each other and examine how to leverage private funds. So far, few countries have explained which measures they are taking in this area.

In a policy paper, initially expected after the summer break, the commission says it will also present the initial findings of a pilot project on insurance schemes that could cover contractual energy performance guarantees.

It also wants to nearly double the amount of cohesion funding for sustainable energy, which includes building renovation, in the 2014-20 budget. [...]

EU policy paper(http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/_getdocument.cfm?doc_id=7616) on construction sector (published on Tuesday). See also reaction from European Alliance for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EuroACE(http://www.endseurope.com/docs/120802a.doc) ).

Adrian Joyce is the secretary-general of EuroACE, an umbrella organisation representing manufacturers of energy-efficiency-related products and services.

He was speaking to EurActiv's Ana-Maria Tolbaru.

Does the Energy Efficiency Directive bring a big change to the market?

For our market the Energy Efficiency Directive is potentially very important. And it is not in Article 6 [the 1.5% cumulative annual energy savings imposed on energy companies] that it is important, it is in the article on long-term strategies for building renovations - the roadmaps, although this word is not in the directive.

The directive is a huge opportunity for our sector. If these strategies are properly formulated, with a proper time horizon and with proper policies and measures, with milestones along the way, then the certainty we have been calling for our sector will be built into those strategies. 

Is there a link between the 1.5% cumulative annual energy savings imposed on power utilities and the long-term strategies for building renovations?

Read full Interview : http://www.euractiv.com/energy-efficiency/energy-expert-energy-savings-dep-interview-514104

Member states are expected in September to present their plans for implementing the directive at national level.

The new directive, agreed in June, is seen as the EU's main tool to meet its goal of cutting 20% energy consumption by 2020, but lawmakers in the European Parliament have already warned that the new law will fall short of that ambition. According to them, it will lead to cuts in energy consumption of only around 15-17% by the end of the decade. 

And experts fear this amount could decrease even more, explaining that it will all depend on how member states calculate the savings. [...]

Adrian Joyce of EuroACE, an organisation representing several manufacturers of energy-efficiency products, said this method of calculating savings comes with its own “risks” as they could be hampered by rushed actions.

“I worry that, because it is under the energy efficiency obligations target, you might get some double-counting between long-term building renovation strategies and energy savings obligation schemes," Joyce told EurActiv in an interview.

He said the quality of the savings that power utilities will be inclined to make will be less optimal, as they will probably look only for the "easy" measures.

EuroACE fears that rushed investments will create “the famous lock-in effect” whereby household owners implement single measures such as replacing a boiler with a more efficient one, allaying their conscience “for 30 years”. But Joyce said these quick fixes will not capture the long-term potential of improving efficiency.

Read article http://www.euractiv.com/energy-efficiency/double-counting-fears-hang-eus-e-news-514105

Published in ENDS Europe - 10 July 2012

Read article: http://www.endseurope.com/29247/commission-issues-plan-to-make-cities-greener?referrer=search

Published in ENDS Europe - 2 July 2012

Read article : http://www.endseurope.com/29175/eu-leaders-urge-swift-eed-law-implementation?referrer=search 

Published in Euractiv.com - 5 June 2012

Published in Euractiv.com - 04 June 2012

The financial crisis has made owners of large commercial and public buildings more cautious about spending on energy efficiency improvements. But experts argue that upfront investments are recovered fast and go beyond merely saving energy and reducing electricity bills.

Commercial and public buildings make up 25% of the existing building stock in Europe – a minority compared to residential houses.

But energy efficiency improvements there pay back faster than in residential houses because the reduction in electricity bills is more substantial, making the return on the initial investment visible more rapidly.

Surely, this should be enough to persuade public and commercial building owners to make the investment. However, the financial crisis has made them more cautious about making large investments in energy efficiency refurbishments.

“Every single investment cost is scrutinised very closely," says Adrian Joyce of EuroAce, a trade group representing leading companies involved in the energy saving goods and services industry.

"In growth times, companies are more likely to invest, but during an austerity period, they go back to their core expertise, and energy efficiency is not their core,” says Joyce, who speaks on behalf of companies like Johnson Controls, Saint Gobain, BASF and United Technologies. “There are not enough projects in the pipeline, they still haven't bought into it”.

Working on public buildings, for example, can indeed be very costly, since most have a historical value that make it harder to carry out traditional energy efficiency improvements. "Public authorities still see expenditure on energy efficiency as public spending,” Joyce said.

"But from our point of view, that is wrong because you get a return very fast.”

Funding schemes

Still, the most frequent obstacle for investing in energy efficiency remains the long investment return period. But commercial building owners need not worry about that, Joyce argued.

“They can take investment in their assets – their buildings – and this way the investment doesn't show in their books, because as a lump sum it is spread throughout years, so they save not only on the energy bill, but also on taxes,” Joyce explained.

By experience, Joyce says customers usually change their mind about the cost-benefit analysis after an initial energy-efficiency audit, even in times of economic austerity.

Read article : http://www.euractiv.com/specialreport-energy-efficient-b/crisis-puts-investors-big-energy-news-513089?utm_source=EurActiv%20Newsletter&utm_campaign=72aef1c87d-newsletter_daily_update&utm_medium=email 

Published in Euractiv.com - 29 May 2012

Read article: http://www.euractiv.com/energy-efficiency/cleaning-policy-puzzle-green-con-news-512938

Published in the European Voice - 4 April 2012

The energy intensity of city living can be cut by efficiency requirements for buildings and by combined heat and power.

In terms of the impact that individuals have on the climate, cities offer some positive features. Compact designs keep travel distances short, share heat between more people, and concentrate electricity usage. But the potential for improvement in the way cities use and distribute energy is still huge.

One way to cut the energy impact is to reduce the energy intensity of buildings. Buildings account for 40% of EU final energy use and 36% of greenhouse-gas emissions because of their needs for heating, cooling and electricity.

In 2010, the EU updated its 2002 rules on the energy performance of EU buildings with a requirement for all buildings constructed after 2020 to consume “near-zero-energy”. Any energy that is used should come from renewable sources generated “either on-site or nearby”.

But MEPs failed in a bid to force member states to go further, with an obligation to upgrade existing buildings too. A proposal for minimum national efficiency standards to apply to any refurbishment of a building of more than 1,000 square metres was also rejected by member states.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a campaign group, called the agreement a missed opportunity, given that a 2020 deadline is too late to contribute toward meeting 2020 emission-reduction targets.

EuroACE has called for the adoption of a renovation roadmap to encourage more energy-efficient renovation. “The potential of Europe's buildings has been neglected when it comes to economic growth,” says Adrian Joyce, director of the Renovate Europe campaign. “But all the evidence shows the huge impact that deep renovation can have in Europe: up to 1.1 million direct new jobs, and savings of 32% in total primary energy.”

Read article: http://www.europeanvoice.com/folder/europeancities/208.aspx

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Sector calls for EU building renovation roadmap

Published in ENDS Europe - 11 October 2011

A group of organisations led by trade association EuroACE has called for investment in major renovations to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. A report conducted by institute BPIE recommends the adoption of a renovation roadmap.[...]

Read full article .

Quote

Building efficiency: The 'two stage' solution

Published in Euractiv - 11 October 2011

Renovating Europe’s buildings for deep efficiency in two stages would result in 71% energy savings across Europe by 2050 and create 800,000 clean energy jobs - at less than two thirds the price of one-off deep renovations, a new report says.

"In the ‘two stage’ scenario we see the highest level of energy savings, one of the lowest investment costs and the highest CO2 emissions reductions,” said Adrian Joyce, the secretary-general of EuroAce, an alliance of energy efficient building companies.[...]

Renovate Europe, an energy efficiency pressure group, is now considering the two-stage idea as having "stand out" potential to assuage EU member state reluctance to invest in "promising" energy savings, during a fiscal crisis.

The EU’s energy efficiency directive recently proposed a 3% buildings renovation target for heat loss, but only for public buildings – 12% of Europe’s stock – just for minimum energy performance requirements, and with opt outs for social housing and small properties.

EuroAce supports a deeper 3% target per annum for all European buildings, without exceptions.[...]

"One of the objectives of our campaign is to make ‘boring’ the new ‘sexy’ ” .

Read ful article

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EU urged to focus on rural energy needs, carbon solutions

Published in EurActiv  23 September  2011

[...] Adrian Joyce, secretary general of the European alliance of companies for energy efficiency in buildings (EuroACE), stressed that "energy efficiency is a must if you are serious about preserving valuable resources". Joyce recalled that fossil fuels – oil, coal and gas – are not only energy sources, they are also used in the production of plastics and pharmaceutical products. Europe needs to stop burning fossil fuel and reduce its demand to extend the lifetime of all these resources, Joyce said.

Read full article

Advocacy Ad

The European Energy Efficiency industry calls for a mandatory roadmap for each Member State to improve the energy performance of existing buildings under the forthcoming EU Energy Savings Framework Directive.

Published in The Parliament Magazine - Issue 325 - 4 April 2011- p.51

Click here to see full Ad

Quote

Parliament battle lines drawn over energy targets

Published in EurActiv  02 March 2011

[...] Amanda Afifi, secretary-general of EuroAce, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings said that a binding target was needed because many member states did not have roadmaps for dealing with their existing building stock. "It would at least set the agenda and framework and force them to look at the issue," she said. "If they have a target to achieve, it will focus minds. It is important to start now because we have a goal of decarbonisation by 2050."

"With buildings representing 40% of Europe's energy consumption you have to renovate - to a deep level - a very high percentage of the building stock by 2050," she continued "and you won't be able to do that in the last ten years between 2040 and 2050. Even if you started now, you'd have to renovate five million buildings a year every year until 2050."

As well as the technical issues, training and financing issues were also involved, "so what we want is for the EU to set a binding overall target for the building sector and then for the member states to look at how they are going to meet it given their local, national and regional circumstances," she said.

Read full article

 Advocacy Ad

European industry calls on all MEPs to support a mandatory roadmap for Member States to improve the energy performance of existing buildings under the Energy Efficiency Strategy Review.

Published in The Parliament Magazine - Issue 316 - 25 October 2010

Click here to see full Ad

 Article

Buildings for the future

By Rick Wilberforce

President, EuroACE

Published in The Parliament Magazine - Issue 385 - 25 October 2010

Buildings use 40% of Europe’s energy and create 35% of its carbon emissions.  Yet technologies are readily available to enable buildings to cut their energy use substantially.  These truths lead to the inevitable conclusion that the EU simply has to focus on the building sector in order to meet its long-term energy and climate-change objectives.  In fact, it will be impossible to meet our targets without making substantial improvements in the energy performance of the existing building stock.

And it’s not solely about meeting energy saving goals.  Consider the other benefits of improving the energy efficiency of buildings. It assists in economic regeneration, by requiring less expenditure on fuel.  It creates employment, from the increased number of jobs needed to install measures.  It reduces fuel poverty, by enabling the poor to more easily heat their homes. It increases energy security, by reducing our demand for imported energy.  It improves the quality of the environment, because buildings become more habitable, comfortable, attractive and easier to maintain.

The potential savings in energy are huge and are deliverable, economically.  Using energy saving materials and technologies which are readily available now, most buildings could reduce their energy consumption to a fraction of current levels.  And, because the value of the energy savings during the lifetime of these measures is likely to be greater than their installation cost, energy saving in buildings achieves a positive economic return; improving the energy efficiency of buildings is a carbon abatement measure at negative cost.

The recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive has been a helpful step forward.  It will ensure that all new buildings are near-zero-energy by 2020.  It will increase the number of buildings with Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).  And it will ensure that buildings being renovated incorporate the most energy-efficient technologies.  But it will do nothing to accelerate the rate of renovation.

Of Europe’s existing buildings, only about 1.2% are renovated and about 0.8% demolished in any given year.  Even if all the buildings being renovated incorporated the highest standards of energy efficiency, this rate is insufficient to meet the EU’s energy saving targets for 2020.
Two important things need to happen if this situation is to be corrected.  First, whenever building renovation takes place, all available energy saving technologies must be incorporated.  This “deep” renovation can achieve a reduction in energy consumption of between 60% and 90%, for the majority of Europe’s buildings.  Second, the annual rate of renovation of Europe’s buildings must be tripled before 2020.  With an unwavering political commitment over this timescale, the energy efficiency industry can deliver.

With the Energy Efficiency Strategy review and Strategic Energy review currently being undertaken, now is the time to demonstrate this commitment and to incorporate objectives and instruments which will help realise the potential.  One measure must be to set binding targets for the deep, energy-efficient, refurbishment of Europe’s buildings.

Targets however have to be quantifiable and progress must be measurable, otherwise they are meaningless.  Fortunately, with the advent of EPCs, which rate the performance of buildings on an A to G scale, we have such a tool.  The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive will ensure that eventually virtually every building in the EU will have an EPC.  The Commission should require Member States to track these centrally, from which point it would be a straightforward matter to set targets (eg for the proportion of buildings to achieve specific EPC ratings), and to monitor progress.
In its forthcoming energy reviews, the Commission must propose such renovation targets, using EPCs or some other measurable means, if we are to achieve the imperative:- to renovate Europe!

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Energy efficiency: The EU's new action plan

Published in EurActiv - 1 September 2010

[...] EuroACE, the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, argued that a revision of the Energy End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive (ESD) should introduce binding national targets for energy savings in buildings as well as a mandatory target to increase the renovation rate.

"The mandatory approach has clearly been more effective for meeting the carbon reduction and renewable energy targets and, without a clear and measurable target for reducing the demand for energy use in buildings, Europe risks falling far short of its efficiency goal," the association said. EuroACE pointed out that a binding target for energy savings in buildings is easier to calculate and administer than an overall primary energy savings target. It added that the rate of renovation will have to increase by a factor of two or three from the current rate of 1.2% to 1.4% by 2020 for Europe to meet its goals.

Read full article

Article

EU must practice before it preaches

by Rick Wilberforce

President, EuroACE

Published in Europe's World - Issue 13 - Autumn 2009        

The challenges of the 21st century with globalization, the growing influence of the World Wide Web, and accelerated climate change call industries, governments and executives all over the world for action. Logistics will be a genuine trendsetter for the economy of the future and could help the EU to recover faster from the crisis. Will the EU keep up with this challenge?

The majority of political, regulatory and legislative stakeholders still see logistics in the limited sense of goods transport, warehousing and special process solutions, rather than recognizing the macro-economic relationships. European policymaking does not yet provide the regulatory incentives to leverage the sector’s potential by completing the Internal market for road cabotage or rail freight or tackling road congestion by nondiscriminatory measures for all users of roads and not just for trucks like the proposed.This despite the fact that the logistics sector was the biggest in the EU in 2008 in terms of revenue, generating 950 billion euro – far ahead of the automotive and chemical industries. Logistics fulfills already a vital backbone function in supporting macroeconomic processes and the operation of markets, critical infrastructures and provision to consumers. Moreover, logistics companies will be the trendsetter for the economy.

Why? Let´s look at our Delphi study “Delivering tomorrow – Customer Needs in 2020 and Beyond”. It shows that issues such as sustainability, education and social responsibility will gain in importance. In the years to come, purchasing decisions will no longer be based solely on brand, quality and price. The environmental impact of products and services will play a major role. The demand of customers for “green” solutions calls the logistics industry for action. And the political decision-makers! The Delphi study predicts that companies will have to collaborate more often and more closely than ever before – beyond European or worldwide borders. But policies and regulations need to be adapted by adequate decision-making taking out unnecessary complexity. And the logistics industry as one of the major service providers for many industries will be the model that others follow. At its core, logistics is not environmental friendly and is at a high cost of energy. But it will be the key sector for driving green solutions in the future. Therefore the global logistics providers will invest more resources than ever before into establishing and operating shared networks and into “green” solutions.

In addition, logistics has long been a hightech industry, with important developments like RFID, GPS, satellite navigation or in turn driving eCommerce. In just a few years, the next generation of the Internet will lead to completely new business models and industrial processes. Not only will completely new global players emerge, but logistics companies will also be able to provide all or parts of more complex production, delivery and service processes than ever. The current financial and economic crisis will only accelerate this trend, with consolidation in all industries and increased outsourcing because of the intense pressure on companies to reduce costs. It is in this light that the competitiveness of the entire European industry is increasingly dependent on logistics. This will require a fresh, holistic view from European regulators and politicians how to treat the sector.

Advocacy Ad

A message to all EP ITRE COMMITTEE Members on the Recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD)

Published in The Parliament Magazine - Issue 289 - 30 March 2009

Click here to see full Ad

Interview

Industry: Long-term policy key to low-energy buildings

Susanne Dyrböl

EuroACE Board Member

Published in EurActiv - 18 February 2009

Several European countries are formulating long-term policy frameworks to ensure that the construction sector can invest securely in low-energy buildings, despite weak EU requirements, a board member at industry group EuroACE told EurActiv in an interview.

Read full interview