Intro

Buildings are at the heart of the European Union's (EU) strategy to combat climate change and create a more sustainable future. The significance of this sector extends to its role in achieving the EU's objectives related to energy consumption and GHG emissions reduction. However, recognizing that this transition isn't merely a technological shift, but deeply intertwined with human dimensions, is crucial.

The European Green Deal  and the Renovation Wave Initiative place a strong emphasis on reductions in GHG emissions and energy use from buildings. A revised  Energy Performance of Buildings Directive was adopted in 2024, further addressing needs for energy efficiency improvements in Europe’s building stock, decarbonization of heating systems, development of renewable energy system such as solar rooftop and developing national renovation strategies to help mobilizing investment for energy efficiency in buildings.

Improvements to buildings, such as better insulation and the adoption of decarbonised heating and cooling systems, and the use of carbon free electricity are essential to reduce GHG emissions from buildings. While often providing a lower-emitting alternative, heating systems such as heat pumps increase a building’s use of electricity. Unless this electricity demand is met by the production of renewable or decarbonised energy, this can lead to a sectoral shift in emissions from the buildings to the electricity sector. Several other factors influence energy consumption and GHG emissions in buildings : (i) the varying annual, and long term, weather and climate patterns, which has a direct effect on GHG emissions from heating and cooling, (ii) the building stock growth and usage, such as the increase in number of dwellings and the average floor area of dwellings, (iii) the way occupants use energy in buildings — such as thermostat settings, duration of heating/cooling, and appliances usages — also influences overall energy demand in buildings.

What the data is telling us:

• The CO2 emissions from the building sector in the EU-27 represented 34% of its total energy related emissions in 2022. Buildings are also responsible for the highest share of the total PM2.5 emissions representing 61% in 2021.
• Greenhouse gas emissions from EU buildings decreased by 34% between 2005 and 2022. This progress was driven by higher energy efficiency standards for new buildings, energy efficiency improvements in existing buildings, decarbonisation of the electricity and heating sectors, and warmer average temperatures in winter.
• The building sector is a major energy consumer in the EU-27, representing around 40% of the total energy consumption in 2022. In absolute value energy consumption in buildings tend to be stable.
• Over the last decade the highest share of emissions and energy consumption in buildings was attributed to the residential sector.
• The residential energy consumption was dominated by space heating that represented in average 64% of the total residential energy used in the period between 2018 and 2022.
• Over 50% of this consumption was based on fossil fuels. Highlighting opportunities of decarbonisation in heating systems based on new technologies such as heat pumps or district heating/cooling system.
• Importantly, implementing energy renovation also include renovating the envelop of buildings (insulation), the design of buildings (e.g.: bio-climatic conception) and consider the need to adapt buildings to climate change. It goes for instance through the increasing number of Near Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) and the use of buildings to produce energy (e.g.: roof top solar PV and solar thermic panels).
• Climate mitigation and energy efficiency in buildings might also bring wider social output such as better health, comfort, air quality improvement as well as economic benefit and decreasing population not able to afford to keep their homes at a suitable temperature. Indicators depicting facets of energy poverty have been on a downward trend for the past years, with geographic variations, but witnessed a surge as a result of the energy crisis that unfolded in 2021,  2022 and 2023.