This paper on the zero carbon and circular challenge in the built environment puts forward several policy recommendations. In order to achieve the net-zero carbon goal by 2050, adapting the built environment is paramount: the EU estimates that the climate change-related damage to infrastructure could grow tenfold under a business-as-usual scenario. The paper advocates the...

Buildings can balance the grid through proactive energy demand management and can play a leading role in transforming the EU energy market, shifting from centralised, fossil-fuel-based systems towards a decentralised, renewable, interconnected and variable system. Many actors agree that buildings have a role in shaping the Energy Market Design Initiative.

The European Union is facing a double challenge: increasing building renovation rates while aiming at achieving “deep renovations”. Increasing the current EU renovation rate from 1.2% per annum to 2-3% is essential to meet both the EU 2020 targets and the commitment undertaken in Paris in December 2015. About 75% of the EU's 210 million...