Mirella Vitale, SVP Marketing, Communications & Public Affairs at ROCKWOOL Group, has 15+ years as an influential global B2B branding leader.
Despite growing commitment to climate action, the world is not on course to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Most specifically, the first and most important goal as stated by the UN: “Substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees”
Best estimates show that the pledges made at the recent COP26 in Glasgow would lead to about 2.4 C of warming, much more than the 1.5 C countries committed to in Paris. This could lead to catastrophic events, including the sea level rising and large bodies of land simply disappearing.
While there were some historic decisions made at COP26, the world needs to do more – now – to avoid disastrous events. One of the main goals from the conference was to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach. To do this, countries were asked to come up with 2030 emissions reductions targets and prioritize short-term climate action.
Looking ahead to COP27 in Egypt, we can’t just more or less carry on the debate from Glasgow. There has to be evidence of real world change over the next few months.
This is especially true in the buildings sector. Buildings are roughly 36% of EU emissions and 40% of U.S. emissions. That’s because the overwhelming share of our building stock is energy inefficient – without wall and roof insulation, high-quality windows, modern heating and cooling systems. And the rate at which buildings are being renovated is extremely low. Across the EU, it’s currently less than 1% per year.
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Despite the growing commitments to climate neutrality, global emissions are still increasing, and we need to step up work to help get short-term results in the buildings sector. In fact, it’s pretty simple. If we fail on building renovation, we fail on climate action. That’s not a theory, it’s a fact.
How Realistic Is Building Renovation?
In a poll of more than 14,000 respondents gauging homeowner’s appetites for renovation, the results were promising. Seventy-nine percent of the 14,000 respondents said they would renovate their homes if they had the means, and 62% believe it’s an individual’s social responsibility to make their home as energy efficient and climate friendly as possible.
This begs the question: if the public appetite for renovation is so strong, why are renovation rates so low? And what can be done this year – before the next COP – to get things moving?
One big reason is that legislation has been missing. In the EU, there are strict requirements for new buildings, but lawmakers are only now beginning to negotiate goals to upgrade existing buildings. If renovation is just a nice-to-have, it won’t happen – or definitely not fast enough to have an impact on GHG emissions.
Another reason is that renovations can be hard to organize. It’s significant that the majority of people polled (58%) said they weren’t knowledgeable about how to apply for funding, find qualified workers and actually plan the work.
For example in Brussels, the capital of the EU, there is a free public service called Homegrade. It helps people plan their renovations, find properly qualified workers and navigate the incentive schemes. But it doesn’t advertise, and not enough people know about it. It’s a sort of catch 22. The people who need the support can’t use it if they don’t know it exists.
Other countries are using incentives to make home improvements. For instance, Italy runs a ‘superbonus’ scheme, that gives significant tax credits for those that make improvements to their home to improve building efficiency.
When it comes to renovations, countries need to make taking action easier and more attractive than not taking action at all. Following Italy’s lead, other countries could roll out tax benefits or credits for homeowners who are doing what they can to lower emissions. That’s how we will get real-world results fast enough to make a difference.
The bottom line is there is much bigger public support for building renovation than people think. The more our countries can implement programs to make it more accessible to all homeowners, the more we’ll be able to do to tackle the world’s staggering emissions output.
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Author: Mirella Vitale, Forbes Councils Member