Energy Saving News
WBCSD Report on Energy Efficiency in Buildings
IN Geneva yesterday, March 18, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) released their report on energy efficiency in buildings, which reveals how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60 percent by 2050 – essential to meeting global climate change targets – but this will require immediate action to transform the building sector.
This is the central message of the report from the WBCSD's four-year, $15 million Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) research project, the most extensive study ever conducted on the subject.
The project took a bottom-up, market-driven approach to understanding the barriers to lower energy use, based on the most detailed view ever of the current state of energy demand in buildings.
Energy use by building type was analyzed for millions of existing and new buildings and projected out to 2050, accounting for differences such as climate and building design.
Using computer simulations, researchers were able to show the market response to various combinations of financial, technical, behavioral and policy options, identifying the optimum mix to achieve transformation for each market studied.
The project's resulting report makes six principle recommendations:
- Strengthen building codes and energy labelling for increased transparency.
- Use subsidies and price signals to incentivize energy-efficient investments.
- Encourage integrated design approaches and innovations.
- Develop and use advanced technology to enable energy-saving behaviour.
- Develop workforce capacity for energy saving.
- Mobilize for an energy-aware culture.
To achieve an energy efficient world, governments, businesses and individuals in their private and professional lives must transform the building sector, which today accounts for 40% of the world's energy use. A multitude of actions are necessary to aggressively reduce energy consumption in new and existing buildings. Necessary changes cannot and will not come through market forces alone.
Friday 19th March 2010
