Evolution of sustainability in building labelling, building policy and building practice

Extended abstract 7-151-26

Buildings are responsible for around one third of European energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and final energy consumption, being residential buildings responsible for more than half of that portion. Although they still have an important impact overall, GHG emissions from the EU building sector were reduced by 43% between 2005 and 2023, largely due to the progression of European policies related to buildings. The paper offers an analysis of the evolution of European building related policy and policy measures covering how they have included environmental sustainability aspects, influencing practice and, in turn, feeding back into its progressive updates in a circular manner. This analysis consists on a historical approach to the regulatory, voluntary action and information and awareness measures that have surrounded and been included in building policy, such as the Energy Efficiency Buildings Directive, and how additional concepts have been added as voluntary, optional or mandatory items. The paper concludes that voluntary measurement of these new items have allowed their integration as core issues that favour the development of a process as complex as the decarbonisation of the building stock in general, and the residential stock in particular. These results help understand how both policy and policy measures progressively have included new topics and indicators related to the environmental sustainability field of knowledge, which can be of use in the development and inclusion of other topics which are relevant in the path to building decarbonization, but have little to no presence in current policy.

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