European project HOPE (Health Optimisation Protocol for Energy-efficient Buildings)

In January 2002, a new European project named HOPE (Health Optimisation Protocol for Energy-efficient Buildings) started with 14 participants from nine European countries. The final goal of the project is to provide the means to increase the number of energy-efficient buildings that are at the same time healthy, thus decreasing the energy use by buildings, and consequently, resulting in a reduction of CO2 emissions from primary energy used for ventilation, heating and humidity control. The outcome will comprise of a methodology for assessing the performance of buildings according to a set of health-energy integrated defined criteria, to improve unhealthy or low energy efficient buildings. This paper presents the background and the methods applied for this three-year European project.