Cost-optimal levels and energy performance certificates: Filling the gaps

Abstract

The energy performance of buildings directive establishes that Member States must introduce minimum energy performance requirements for buildings and building components. Studies must be done based on a cost-optimal level methodology, considering the investment and operational costs to reach nearly Zero Energy Buildings. However, there is a lack of information on the European Union guidelines concerning social and environmental issues. The existent framework requires Member States to make the calculations based on an economic perspective — a macroeconomic level and a financial level. Thus, the three-pillars (social, economic, and environmental) conception of sustainability is not fulfilled in the implementation of the present cost-optimal levels methodology. Neither indoor environmental quality is considered nor the environmental impact of the embodied CO2 in building components. Apart from this, current energy performance certificates are only energy-related. However, they have the potential to track also indoor environmental quality and the global environmental impact of building components. A new approach, both for cost-optimal levels and energy performance certificates, considering indoor environmental quality and the embodied CO2 in building components through a life cycle assessment, could fill the social and the environmental gaps.