Energy use in buildings accounts for over 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions so it is no surprise that the buildings sector is important to European energy policy. What often surprises those of us who work in this sector is that this importance is not always clear to many people including stakeholders and political decision makers; perhaps we have to reflect on how we market energy performance.

Improving the energy performance of buildings not only offers the most effective means of improving the security of energy supply, reducing CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions and thereby preventing climate change, it also contributes to economic development and social welfare. This fact makes energy performance a powerful tool to help achieve more sustainable development and thus contributes to all aspects of more sustainable development. CONCERTO has proven that integrating energy criteria in urban planning has the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by 2/3. It is also demonstrating that this integrated approach can be cost effective in the short term and also offers additional long term collective and individual benefits.

The initiative has a role to play in providing responses to the challenges now facing planners throughout Europe, such as rising energy prices, environmental problems, social pressure and urban regeneration. The task must surely be to work towards making the integration of energy criteria within urban planning, as demonstrated by CONCERTO, standard practice throughout Europe.

As a contribution to addressing these issues, the European Commission together with CONCERTO Plus organised an expert “think tank” meeting in Brussels on December 17^th 2008. The meeting brought together a representative group of professionals from the involved projects and from its extended scientific community, as well as representatives from various areas of the European Commission, including the Directorate General for Energy and Transport, the Directorate General for Regional Policy, the Directorate General for Research and the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation.

The participants in the “think tank” discussed CONCERTO: from best practices to best policies, focussing on ways and means to integrate energy and climate change issues in cities’ strategies and operational planning. The objective was to find answers to crucial questions such as how to capitalise on experience, in order to meet the goals of the climate actions plans and the European 20 / 20 / 20 targets and also to explore the “vision” and the “tools” for the transition from the city of today to the city of the year 2020 and beyond. Synergies between CONCERTO and other EC programmes such as the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) platform were also explored with a view to maximising the impact of the initiatives demonstration activities.

Discussions included a detailed exchange of information between the community representatives and Directorate General for Energy and Transport policy development staff, regarding the EPBD recast common position paper submitted by the 45 participating communities (an article on this issue can be found in this edition of the CONCERTO newsletter). It is clear that if the targets for 2020 and beyond are to be met by the buildings sector as a whole, then best performance will have to aim much higher in order to motivate the whole sector towards achieving the goal. 

In conclusion, in this challenging time for Europe the CONCERTO programme has an important role to play. As the communities mature there are synergies to be exploited between the communities and European institutions and also with regional and national authorities. By embedding sustainable energy criteria in the planning for the built environment, CONCERTO is set to demonstrate benefits in environmental, social and economic terms.

Enjoy your reading and your work,


Mike Barker
Barcelona*

* Mr. Barker, formally working at the University of Barcelona, is today active as an independent Energy Consultant.