The construction and development sector should already be working on legislation that will take effect in 2040. So says Jeroen Verberne of engineering and architecture firm Volantis in the podcast Bureau Stoer. What's coming out of Europe in the near future, and how do we prepare for it?
Robert Dijksterhuis, as envoy for sustainable construction for the Ministry of VRO, has spent the past five years negotiating in Brussels for new rules to help the construction industry make the built environment more sustainable. This is all part of the Green Deal, as presented in 2019 by Frans Timmermans.
National regulations and policies
"Those negotiations are now finished and we are now in the implementation phase," he says. "We have negotiated something like 20 new laws in total, six or seven of which have implications for the built environment. We are now in the phase of translating those European regulations into national regulations or national policies."
Dijksterhuis mentions three important rules. The first is ZEB, which will replace BENG. Zero Emission Building is more stringent than the Nearly Energy Neutral Building, as we have here in the Netherlands. "That will be a very different beast. BENG looks at energy, and ZEB is going to look at a building's emissions, so not just energy consumption in the operational phase."
Emission rights raise the bill
Furthermore, we will look at the CO2 emissions of the entire life of the building. "So not only the use phase of the building, but also how many CO2 emissions are actually embedded in the material you use in the construction phase and also in the demolition phase. Or actually the reuse phase, because we don't want to demolish anymore, we want to get rid of waste, we want to become circular."
A third thing coming at us from Europe is ETS2, the emissions trading system for buildings and road transport. "Energy suppliers who supply fossil energy to households will have to start buying emission rights to supply natural gas from 2028. That means roughly a dime per cubic meter price increase, and as a consumer who still has a fossil-fuel boiler, you will notice that in your energy bill. An average household will soon lose 100 to 150 euros a year."
Good choices
Pim Ketelaars, driver of sustainable innovation at Heijmans sees the European rules as an opportunity. In this first episode of Bureau Stoer on Tour from the Working Conference Circular and Future-Safe Building for Tomorrow, Jan Willem van de Groep leads a discussion on how construction can deal with the new rules, what else is coming and what it takes to make good choices today. Jeroen Verberne of engineering and architecture firm Volantis, warns builders, designers and developers to anticipate now on regulations coming our way from Europe. Curious why?
Listen to the full episode of Bureau Stoer on Tour here
Curious about previous episodes or information about Bureau Stoer? Look here -> Bureau Stoer
