Terms
Terms
Terminology
Building blocks are the economic sectors, such as energy, transport or industry, and cross-cutting areas, such as finance, innovation, and lifestyles, in which transformation is needed to achieve a climate neutral society by 2050, and across which ECNO tracks progress.
Building block assessment
Acceleration factor
Or the ‘required change in speed’ is the ratio of the required change versus the past change on a given indicator. This results in the example formulation: ‘We need to increase our annual emission reductions to at least 4.9 Mt CO2e per year – or 2.6 times faster than the 1.9 MtCO2e per year achieved in the past’.
Benchmarks
Future reference points against which progress for each indicator is compared. ECNO derives benchmarks from official EU sources, such as directives, regulations, strategies, and action plans, including their related impact assessments. Benchmarks often come in the form of quantified policy goals or targets.
Climate neutrality
Stands for the objective of achieving net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means that emissions are brought down as close to zero as possible, with remaining, difficult to abate emissions balanced by GHG removals within a given country or region.
Enablers
The supporting conditions and underlying changes needed to meet the objectives in a given building block. They are the opposite of barriers or inhibitors.
Historical data
Includes, but is not limited to, statistics from Member States harmonised and provided by Eurostat or the European Environment Agency (EEA) as well as from international organisations such as the OECD, FAO, or World Bank.
Indicators
Track the historical development and status of enablers and objectives based on quantitative data. An assessment of indicator progress compares the trend against the required development to meet a future reference point, where data and relevant benchmarks are available.
Objectives
Describe what needs to be achieved in each building block to reach climate neutrality.
Required change
The change that underlies a pathway that meets the identified benchmark or target. Where benchmarks are missing, the required change indicates a direction and speed of change.
Trend
The development of an indicator over time based on historical data. ECNO’s trendline is a straight, best-fit line that smooths out the variation in historical developments based on all data points, providing a sense of the general progress over time.
Buildings
Buildings covers the main stages of the buildings cycle, from materials production to energy demand for various end-uses: heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, ventilation, and appliances.
OVERVIEW:
Progress on buildings has been far too slow
The buildings sector is far too slow in its progress to meet the EU’s overall climate neutrality objectives. The Renovation Wave communication outlines a target of reducing GHG emissions by 60% by 2030 compared to 2015. The recent decrease of emissions from 2015 to 2021 must accelerate by 7.5 times to reach this target.
To achieve this, the current energy renovation rate of building stocks needs to increase significantly to at least 2 to 3%. The “one-off” deep renovations must be more widespread than currently, with only one fifth of deep renovation. The share of renewable energy in heating and cooling must accelerate by 7 times to reach 100% and the fossil fuel phase out in 2040. The demand for space per capita and new buildings material needs a U-turn to ensure the decrease of embodied emissions.
INSIGHT ONE
Achieving the 60% reduction in emissions by 2030 requires more than doubling the pace of renovation
Current projected emissions in the plans from the Member States are far from sufficient, as also highlighted in the trend of historical reductions. To achieve the 60% reduction stated in the EU Renovation Wave, the current energy renovation rate of building stocks needs to increase significantly to 2 to 3%, at least doubling current annual energy renovation rate reaching significant energy consumption cuts.
INSIGHT THREE
The data on the buildings sector is spotty, which makes the tracking of the implementation very difficult
The amount of data collected on the indicator for buildings is sparse, and outdated. For example, there is just one mere data point concerning the rate and depth of renovation dating back to 2016. Data on average space per capita dates to 2015, and the average annual energy-related investments in renovation to 2016, with no clear view on the impact of inflation.
OBJECTIVES
Objectives describe what needs to be achieved in each building block to reach climate neutrality.
Objective 1
Reducing buildings emissions
Between 2005 and 2021, the direct GHG from buildings in the EU decreased by 20%. This trend reflects the EU’s decarbonisation strategy, which includes the improvement of energy efficiency and the electrification of end-uses. However, the speed of change has decreased over time. The pace of change would need to increase significantly to meet the overall 2030 GHG emissions target stated in the EU Renovation Wave (-60% between 2015 and 2030). To achieve this, the current energy renovation rate needs to increase significantly, it needs a fuel switch as well as demand reductions.
GHG emissions from direct buildings energy use
The data shows past progress of 5 Mt CO2e between 2016 and 2021. The target is a 60% reduction of buildings GHG emissions between 2015 and 2030. To meet the target, the required annual change between 2021 and 2030 need to be 7.5 times faster than the past rate of progress.
Buildings direct emissions are the aggregate GHG emissions of the category commercial/institutional and residential buildings. Those emissions do not capture the indirect emissions (electricity and energy production) nor the embedded emissions of buildings material.
Objective 2
Limiting material demand
The buildings sector consumes 50% of the use of materials in the EU by weight. Limiting the demand of material with high carbon intensity avoid a large increase in embodied emissions from production, construction, renovation, and end-of-life. The largest contribution to the embodied emissions of a building is caused by its initial construction. Building blocks and bricks of cement or concrete are mainly used for new buildings and have increased from 2015 to 2021. Policies encouraging circular economy practices must support the shift to alternative and more sustainable materials.
Demand for building blocks and bricks of cement or concrete
The demand for building blocks and bricks of cement or concrete increased by 1% per year (trendline) between 2016 and 2021. Although there is no target on this indicator, this increasing trend is not aligned with the need for decreasing material demand for new buildings floor area, and their related embodied emissions.
The production, import and export at the EU level of building blocks and bricks of cement or concrete is published by Eurostat. The demand for building blocks and bricks is approximated by summing the annual production and the imports minus the exports.
ENABLERS
Enablers are the supporting conditions and underlying changes needed to meet the objectives in a given building block. They are the opposite of barriers or inhibitors.
Enabler 1
Reducing demand for heating and cooling services
Average space per capita
The average space per capita increased by 0.25 m²/capita per year between 2011 and 2015. Although there is no target on this indicator, the growing historical trend is not aligned with the need to reduce heating and cooling services.
The average space per capita is the ratio between the total surface of buildings (residential and services) and the population.
Energy consumed for heating and cooling related to living space
The annual decrease of the energy consumption for heating and cooling was 1.5 kWh/m2 which is on track towards reaching the target from the Renovation Wave of -18% in 2030 compared to 2015 level.
The average final energy consumption for space heating and cooling is obtained by dividing the total consumption for space heating and cooling by the total buildings area. Final energy consumption for space heating (resp. cooling) is normalized with the heating degree days (resp. cooling degree days) to smooth out climate variability.
Enabler 2
Plan and facilitate the renovation of buildings
Investments for energy renovation
The annual investments in renovation increased by 5% or 13 billion EUR per year between 2012 and 2016 which is going in the right direction. However, to analyse this indicator, there is a need for more complete, reliable and recent data.
The average annual energy-related investments in renovation covers both the private and public investments.
Average renovation rate
There is not enough data to derive a trend but the average renovation rate was estimated close to 1% in for the period 2012-2016. To reach the 2030 target of 2-3%, the rate has to double.
As renovation depths are classified based on achieved primary energy savings, the average (or weighted) renovation rate describes the annual reduction of primary energy consumption achieved through the sum of energy renovations of all depths.
Deep renovation rate
There is not enough data to derive a trend but the average annual amount of deep renovation for the period 2012-2016 was only around 0.2%. This means it is only about one fifth of all renovations and highlights that such “one-off’ deep renovations are not common practice.
There is no official target for deep renovation, but historical deep renovation activity is far from the level required to reach the 2030 emissions targets.
The deep renovation rate comprises all renovations with primary energy savings above 60%.
Enabler 3
Accelerate the technology switch
Share of renewable energy in heating and cooling
Data show an annual increase of 0.6%-points between 2016 and 2021 which is far too slow to reach 100% for phasing-out fossil fuels by 2040. The required annual change between 2021 and 2030 needs to increase to 4.1%-points which is 6.8 times faster than the current rate of progress.
The share of renewable energy used for heating and cooling includes solar thermal, geothermal energy, ambient heat captured by heat pumps, solid, liquid, and gaseous biofuels, and the renewable part of waste.
report
State of EU progress to climate neutrality
The assessment of progress towards climate neutrality shows that the EU is moving in the right direction, but the pace is too slow. The transition to climate neutrality is essential for ensuring a liveable future.
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