EU faces calls for tougher green building rules

The Green Alliance business think tank will today join forces with a group of NGOs and MEPs to call on the European Commission to tighten proposed energy efficiency regulations and sign up to a new target that would require all member states to cut energy use by 20 per cent by 2020.

The Commission is currently working on a new energy efficiency action plan that is expected to include plans to renovate about 15 million buildings across the bloc, while MEPs are expected to vote early next year on the final version of the Energy Using Products Directive, which is expected to impose tough new energy efficiency standards on a wide range of electrical appliances and white goods.

However, the new group – which includes Green MEP Claude Turmes and German MEP Dr Peter Liese, who played a major role in shaping the EU's climate change action plan – will call on the Commission to set more ambitious targets as part of the new legislative package.

"More coherent and ambitious buildings and product policy would save EU consumers billions of euros and help meet the EU’s CO2 targets," said Hannah Hislop, policy adviser at Green Alliance. "If the EU makes use of this window of opportunity it will be a win-win scenario for the consumer and the environment. If not, it will have badly let down its citizens.”

In particular, the group is proposing a new Cool Products, Warm Homes manifesto that calls on the Commission to adopt a mandatory 20 per cent energy saving target for 2020, close loopholes in green building regulations, and ban all but the most efficient heating and cooling products.

It also urged the Commission to divert more funds into green retrofit programmes as the most cost-effective means of cutting carbon emissions and proposes ambitious standards that would require all new buildings to be net zero carbon by 2015.