Terminologies

defined as a document – in electronic or paper format – outlining a long-term (up to 10 or 20 years) step-by-step renovation roadmap for a specific building, resulting from an on-site energy audit fulfilling specific quality criteria and indicators¹ established during the design phase, following a dialogue with building owners. The expected benefits in terms of reduced heating bills, comfort improvement and CO₂ reduction are a constitutive part of the Building Renovation Passport and are explained in a user-friendly way.

¹ E.g. energy consumption, daylighting, indoor air quality, health conditions, thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, cost

The renovation roadmap can be combined with a repository of building-related information (logbook) on aspects such as the energy consumption and production, executed maintenance and building plans, providing several functionalities to the building owner which could go beyond the energy performance.

The objective of a long-term renovation strategy is ‘to support the renovation of the national stock of residential and non-residential buildings, both public and private, into a highly energy efficient and decarbonised building stock by 2050, facilitating the cost-effective transformation of existing buildings into nearly-zero energy buildings’. This is an obligation that governments should follow. In new or retrofitted buildings, not taking IEQ into account can result, for example, in very airtight constructions with insufficient ventilation. This can lead to overheating or to the increase of indoor air pollutants, which also has implications on health and wellbeing. Therefore, when defining renovation strategies, the objective should be to reduce the energy consumption of buildings without compromising comfort, health and wellbeing of people living inside them, in a way that optimises both building and societal costs. (Source: BPIE)

“Indoor Air Quality is the environmental characteristics inside buildings that may affect human health, comfort or work performance.” (Source: IAQ Scientific Findings Resource Bank)

The most important factors that determine the IEQ of a building are indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics. Each of these factors contribute to the overall indoor climate to a similar extent. However, occupants’ behaviour (e.g. opening windows when heating is on), awareness and their level of adoption to the indoor environmental conditions is critical in maintaining good IEQ. In addition, building controls (either manual or automatic) ensuring that indoor environmental parameters such as temperature are kept within acceptable levels can also influence the overall IEQ. (Source: BPIE)

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are an integral part of the EPBD and constitute an important instrument to enhance energy performance of buildings, which Article 19 of the recently revised EPBD says should be further improved. The main objective of the EPC is to serve as an information tool for future building owners, tenants, occupiers and real estate actors (Article 20, 2). Therefore, EPCs can be a powerful market tool to create demand for energy efficiency in buildings by targeting improvements such as a decision-making criterion in real-estate transactions, and by providing recommendations for the cost-effective or cost-optimal upgrading of the energy performance. EPCs are among the most important sources of information on the energy performance of the EU’s building stock and have the potential to become effective instruments to track buildings’ energy performance and their overall IEQ status. (Source: BPIE)

Dwelling Energy Assessment Procedure

Energy Service Companies

a Sustainable Energy Action Plan

a structure maintained and used as a single dwelling unit

a building or a structure that is designed to host several different families in separate housing units

housing provided for people on low incomes or with particular needs by government agencies or non-profit organisations

a type of financial cooperative that provides traditional banking services on a non-profit basis

providing or offering a comprehensive range of goods or services in a single location for the ease of the customer

when all the renovation services are accessible from a single-entry point, enabling all end-users to receive the solutions that best meet their needs and objectives

according to the European Performance of Buildings Directive [2010/31/EU], a nearly zero-energy building (NZEB) has a very high energy performance and the nearly zero or very low amount of energy required should be covered to a very significant extent by energy from renewable sources, including on-site or nearby

a form of creative financing for capital improvement which allows energy upgrades to be funded through cost reductions

a strategic management and lean start-up template for developing new or documenting existing business models