The European Commission has launched a public consultation on boosting the renovation of buildings across the EU (deadline: 9 July 2020). The Renovation Wave initiative is a priority under the European Green Deal and the Recovery plan for the EU, aimed at increasing the rate and quality of renovation of existing buildings and thereby helping decarbonise the building stock.

Given the relatively labour-intensive nature of renovation work and the way in which this matches the “green, digital and resilient” ambition of the Commission recovery package, the Next Generation EU Communication talks of regulatory and financial support to “at least doubling the annual renovation rate of existing building stock”.

In addition to cutting emissions, renovation will lead to reduced energy consumption (and lower household bills), safer and healthier buildings, as well as addressing energy poverty and improving people’s quality of life. In employment terms, renovation will also stimulate numerous local, skilled jobs (especially for SMEs), and thereby also deliver clear benefits to the local economy. The Renovation Wave initiative puts the focus on existing buildings and on renovation - according to the principle of circularity - with a lower level of inconvenience for people living in the buildings under renovation.

The consultation aims at gathering views and input from a broad range of stakeholders, including national, regional and local authorities, businesses, unions, civil society organisations, education organisations, consumer groups, research and innovation organisations, as well as individual citizens. Their contributions will then feed into the Commission's deliberations on the initiative. The Commission has confirmed the intention to publish - in the autumn - a strategic communication and an action plan with concrete measures to deploy faster and deeper renovation.

Last month the Commission published a roadmap for the Renovation Wave for public feedback, which closed on 8 June. Click here to read its results.