BPIE: Europe's buildings under the microscope - PU Europe

While the dataset of residential buildings is fairly comprehensive, the non-residential stock is far less
covered, as the sector is associated with higher uncertainty levels due to the difficulties in tracking the
existing stock of all different non-residential types and developing an appropriate statistical database.
Public buildings are in the limelight at the moment due to the policies requiring the public sector to lead
by example where all new constructions in the sector are required to be of nearly zero energy standards
by end of 2018 9 while a sectoral renovation rate of at least 3% is recommended 10 .
The exercise carried out by BPIE has reinforced the need for collecting better data and urge a call for the
establishment of guidelines and requirements under which Member States should gather more extensive
and consistent data on the typology of their non-residential stock.
B. Characteristics
In addition to typology, buildings vary greatly in terms of age, size and location. The data collected through our
survey has allowed us to draw up a picture of these characteristics. These are discussed in more detail below.
Age
Buildings across Europe are associated with different time periods dating even before the 1900s. Historical
buildings certainly have a significant heritage value while construction techniques and building regulations
such as building codes imposed at the design phase have a great influence on the energy performance of a
building built in a specific period.
In the residential sector, the age of a building is likely to be strongly linked to the level of energy use for the
majority of buildings that have not undergone renovation to improve energy performance.
The BPIE survey has classified buildings in different age bands (specific chronological periods) for each country.
In order to allow some comparison between the age profiles of the residential building stock of different
countries, the floor area data for each country has been consolidated into three representative age bands 11 :
Old: typically representing buildings up to 1960
Modern: typically representing buildings from 1961 to 1990
Recent: typically representing buildings from 1991 to 2010
Figure 1B1 shows the share of residential floor space by age band. The specific energy use within these age
bands is likely to differ between countries in different regions of Europe due to a number of political, economic
and social factors. The average composition for each region has been estimated by summing the floor area
by age band for all countries in the respective region where detailed data have been made available. The
variations in the age profile between the three regions appear to be small where older buildings (before 1960)
have the biggest share in the North & West region. In particular, the countries with the largest components
of older buildings are the UK, Denmark, Sweden, France, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. It is also evident that
all countries experienced a large boom in construction in the ‘modern’ period (1961-1990) and with a few
exceptions, the housing stock more than doubled in this period.
Significant country-by-country variations are also evident. The countries with the most recently
constructed buildings (1990-2010) appear to be Ireland, Spain, Poland and Finland, while countries with
the highest rate of construction in the ‘modern’ period (1961-1990) seem to be Estonia, Hungary, Latvia
and Finland.
9
Based on the EPBD recast
10
Based on the ‘Energy Efficiency Plan’ 2011
11
A more detailed age breakdown was available in individual countries. When sorted at the regional level, it was possible to deduce the breakdown
in the three age groups identified herein.
Europe’s buildings under the microscope | 35