News of Sustainable construction from EU

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 The EU institutions priority in the next years is to develop policies and action plan to develop sustainable construction.

The first official publication stemming from DG Enterprise was released on 31st July 2012 and the subject is the sustainable competitiveness of the construction sectors and its enterprises. The scope is the construction sector: contractors, demolishers, distributors, developers, construction product manufacturers.

The key issues to be addressed are:

  • Promoting renovation of buildings;
  • Developing of a range of services to address health and safety, energy efficiency, green building, disasters resilience-adaptations to climate change (i.e., earthquake safety and fire safety), indoor climate, reuse/recovery/recycling and design to fit;
  • Promoting sustainable use of natural resources: basic requirement of the construction products regulationsustainable use of construction products) will be implemented to all construction products;
  • Stimulating investment conditions.

DG Enterprise further published a communication on a stronger industry for growth and recovery mentioning the construction sector as a key industrial target for new EU policies. DG Environment is working on policies to tackle the sustainability of buildings (residential and non-residential) covering the whole lifecycle of a building, i.e. material efficiency, land-use planning, recycling, water, embedded energy in material, eco-design of buildings, the efficiency of the supply chain. DG Environment will launch a stakeholder publication early November 2012, start an impact assessment study on the policies it wishes to implement and publish an action plan end of 2013.

Finally DG Climate Action is also focusing on the construction sector to implement climate change adaptation strategies. They are looking for construction technological solutions that will resist to floods, increasing temperature variation and other climate change associated impacts.