ENERGY PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS IN THE EU MEMBER STATES - main challenges for the EPBD now and in the future

The EU Member States (MS) have been gradually transposing and implementing theEnergy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) into their own national legislation sincethe Directive was adopted in January 2003. The EPBD is the most significant measureadopted so far by the EU to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings.A main objective of the EPBD is to improve the energy performance of the Europeanbuilding stock. The EPBD proposes certain measures that encourage energy efficiencyimprovements existing large buildings. Furthermore, an energy certificate scheme hasbecome the central element of the Directive, and this will be compulsory for all EuropeanMember States from 2009 at the latest. As a consequence, it is possible that knowledgeabout the energy performance of buildings in all Member States will have to be collected indatabases. Afterwards, this knowledge might be made available to the construction andproperty sectors to promote the energy performance of buildings. Additionally, thedatabases might be of high value for future surveys of energy-saving potentials, forcompiling energy-saving measures, for benchmarking buildings and for policy making. Inthe long run the accumulated knowledge will facilitate more systematic generation ofenergy savings with a more solid basis, especially if the quality of the building stockknowledge attained by implementing energy certificates is of high quality.