Buildings are major consumers of energy. Around 40% of final energy consumption in the European Community is in the buildings sector. EC research has indicated that by improving energy efficiency, carbon emissions from buildings and related energy costs could be reduced by 42%.

The procurement of energy efficient materials and/or services
by public bodies has the potential to become a major driving force for the market penetration of efficient products. The power of public procurement in Europe is significant: public authorities each year spend over € 1,500 billion on goods and services.

Approximately 40% of the procurement budgets of local authorities are spent on buildings, some report even higher figures. To date, there are still many but surmountable obstacles to the realisation of energy efficiency potentials in this sector.

The DEEP project aims to promote opportunities in improving energy efficiency through high environmental standards for public buildings. Therefore, criteria for building materials, energy requirements, and green electricity will be developed and largely disseminated in local authorities. This research project is supported by ‘Intelligent energy Europe’. 

The member states intend to use different methodologies to calculate the energy performance of several building types after the implementation of the European Directive 2002/91/EC on the energy performance of buildings. The grade of accuracy and the amount of input data is specified by each country and may differ for the building
categories. The results of the calculations will be indicated on the energy certificates.

ICLEI- Local governments for sustainability
Sustainable procurement team

01/08/2005

Susanne Bruner - Lienhart, Ines Oehme, Francesca Villari and Martino Miliardi.

research

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Environmental sustainability

Energy efficiency