Geneva, 30 November: Between September and November 2017, WBCSD, in partnership with Climate-KIC, organized a workshop on Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in Buildings in Zurich, Switzerland, bringing together around 150 stakeholders of the building value chain. Participants included material manufacturers, construction companies, real estate firms, service providers and financial organizations as well as officials from the city of Zurich and local policy makers.
The goal of the workshop (Steigerung der Energie Effizienz under Nutzung Erneuerbarer Energien in Gebäuden, EEG workshop) was to develop an action plan to accelerate the transition to energy efficient and renewable energy-powered buildings in the Zurich area.
The draft action plan was presented today during a plenary session at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich).
The EEG workshop aims to contribute to the City of Zurich’s goal of a “2,000-Watt Society” by 2050, the City’s model for sustainable energy use that covers key areas such as energy efficiency, renewable energies and sustainable buildings (today, Zurich consumes around 5,000 watts of primary energy per resident).
Ahead of the EEG workshop, the local coordinator, TEP Energy, prepared a market and policy review in the Zurich context together with a scoping document to frame the key issues to discuss but also identify the key stakeholders to involve in the workshop.
The EEG workshop took place in three steps: in September, participants analyzed market barriers through interviews; in October, they came up with solutions to the identified challenges through roundtable discussions before reporting back on results during the plenary on 30 November.
The resulting action plan is articulated around five main themes:
- policy (legal requirements of buildings, labels and standards);
- building management and performance guarantee;
- financing models;
- shared economy models (incl. own-power producing communities); and
- long-term planning approaches.
For each theme, the participants of the EEG workshop recommended a series of measures and identified the stakeholders best positioned to take up the actions (policy-makers, business, financial institutions etc.).
Stakeholders who are interested in the implementation of actions have been invited to join a EEG platform which will coordinate the next steps.
Please contact Martin Jakob, TEP Energy, coordinator of the initiative in Zurich to receive the draft report and learn how to engage. The final report (in German) will available online shortly. The market and policy review as well as scoping documents are available online (in German).
The EEG workshop is part of a global initiative led by WBCSD to galvanize local action on energy efficiency in buildings. The stakeholders’ engagement approach has been piloted in 10 cities globally between 2014-2016.
In 2017, WBCSD has partnered with Climate-KIC to bring the initiative to Zurich and Paris/Ile-de-France and also promote the Building Market Brief (BMB) developed by Climate-KIC and Chalmers University. The BMB is a condensed report that aims to encourage low-carbon innovations and adoption in the building sector. The draft Building Market Brief Switzerland was presented during the plenary and is available via the Climate-KIC BTA website. In 2018 a series of BMBs will be launched.
