Communication on resource efficiency opportunities in the building sector

The construction and use of buildings in the EU account for about half of all our extracted materials and energy consumption and about a third of our water consumption. The sector also generates about one third of all waste and is associated with environmental pressures that arise at different stages of a building's life-cycle including the manufacturing of construction products, building construction, use, renovation and the management of building waste.

The main objectives of this initiative are to promote a more efficient use of resources consumed by new and renovated commercial, residential and public buildings and to reduce their overall environmental impacts throughout the full life cycle. Resourse use is determined in large part by design decisions and choices over construction materials. To help bringing resource efficiency gains, designers, manufacturers, contractors, authorities and users need useable and reliable information to inform their decision-making. This initiative addresses this information deficit by proposing a set of clearly defined and measurable indicators, for the assessment of the environmental performance of buildings.

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)445: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:445:FIN

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