EFFECT4buildings participated in the EU Energy Sustainable Week in Brussels on June 5th-6th. One hot topic that was discussed was the additional co-benefits to energy efficiency in buildings.
Conclusions from the EU Energy Week:
People spend 90% of the time indoor, which marks the importance of a high-quality indoor environment when it comes to temperature, air, light and noise. It will improve health and avoid allergies among other factors. Indoor pollutions today cause an estimated 4.3 million premature deaths each year globally according to the WHO.
– We have found that 90% of the costs in a building is staff costs and energy costs only 1%, say Rodolphe Nicolle from a study made by the project Buildings2030. In general, we have overlooked the costs and consequences of unhealthy indoor quality.
40% of energy consumption comes from buildings and 97% of the buildings need to be upgraded. To make this happen, we need to talk about all values reached by building renovations.
EFFECT4buildings address this question under the tool called Multi Service Contracts under the lead of partner Gate21.
– The plan is to try to put monetary values and to calculate Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency, to make investments even more profitable and also to develop planning tools for how this can be integrated in the planning process, says Marit Ragnarsson from the County Board of Dalarna in Sweden.
Buildings2030 will collect more health data and follow up the development of financial and business models. Future cooperation between initiatives in the same thematic area is essential.
EFFECT4buildings partner regions have several companies that provide technology solutions for a better indoor climate. By clustering them, the project will have the possibility to provide complete solutions for a good indoor environment to meet market demand.
Photo on top: Rodolphe Nicolle from the platform Buildings2030 and Marit Ragnarsson from EFFECT4 buildings reached common conclusions in Brussels on the approach to increase energy efficiency measures by addressing additional co-benefits.
