New Study Says Buildings Sector Can Have Major Impact on Emissions
A study completed by the Central European University and commissioned by the Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN) demonstrates how transformative change in the building sector can contribute to emissions reductions. To achieve the full potential of emissions reductions in the building sector, today’s best-practice, state-of-the-art buildings must become the standard in less than 10 years, according to the study. It suggests that all new buildings should develop toward net zero energy or very-low-energy standards.
With the support of 64 global building code experts from around the world, the study presents 15 criteria for identifying best practices in building codes and policies. Twenty-five best practice building energy efficiency codes from the four GBPN regions and the rest of the world were scored based on these criteria. The results were used to form an interactive tool that analyzes and compares best-practice energy efficiency codes and their supporting measures.
The intent of the tool is to promote examples of dynamic and ambitious building energy efficiency regimes for new buildings, with a particular focus on building energy efficiency codes. The 25 energy efficiency codes in the tool from across the GBPN regions (China, Europe, India and U.S.) and some examples of codes from jurisdictions outside of the GBPN regions were selected to demonstrate elements of best practices. They were also selected to highlight regional differences in best practices relative to climate so that all jurisdictions globally could learn from the codes and policy packages.
The full report can be found at: http://www.gbpn.org/sites/default/files/08.Final-BC-Report_Reduced-File-Size.pdf
The comparative tool is available at: http://www.gbpn.org/databases-tools/purpose-policy-comparative-tool
All data included in the tool is available as open linked data on the GBPN website, and experts are encouraged to continue to collaborate on this project on an on-going basis. The launch of the tool is intended to create a collaborative learning process for building energy efficiency codes around the world.