The energy we use for heating and cooling buildings accounts for about one quarter of all energy consumed in Europe - as much as all EU transport. Many buildings are poorly insulated and use inefficient heating and cooling products, unnecessarily wasting energy, contributing to climate change and air pollution, and costing billions of euros in high energy bills.
Saving energy is not yet a priority for the EU. Legislation to tackle the energy efficiency of buildings and products is not sufficiently ambitious and lacks coherence, despite the
Ecodesign Directive and the revised Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) which was
agreed between Member States in November 2009. The Cool Products, Warm Homes Manifesto makes five recommendations to end the energy wasted for heating and cooling our buildings.
1. Adopt a mandatory EU 20% energy saving target by 2020 to support our commitment to energy conservation.
2. Establish more coherent legislation to close gaps and set clear responsibilities.
3. Boost the energy performance and renovation rate of existing buildings in the EU.
4. Allow only the greenest heating and cooling products to reach the market.
5. Redirect finance where it matters.
Click
here to download the full text of the Manifesto. Please note that this text was formulated before the revised EPBD was agreed between Member States in November 2009, so please consider it mainly a background document. We are still looking for civil society organisations, businesses, policy makers and others who would like to support it, so organisations that are signing this now should mainly be considering the basic 5 points listed above as the key principles we are asking them to sign up to and support (rather than necessarily the letter of the full Manifesto, especially with regards to the out of date elements of it).
If you have trouble with the online form, or if you are an individual signatory, write to us directly at info@coolproducts.eu or contact:
• Germana Canzi, +44 20 71930274, germana - AT - eur-policy.com