REgional policies towards GREEN buildings

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Over the last two years, the concept of 'green economy' has moved to the mainstream of the international and European policy discourse (OECD, UN, EC). Global economic crisis and the increased attention to climate change mitigation have intensified the need for a new economic paradigm. The greening of economies has the potential of being a new engine of growth, contributing to sustainable economic development, creation of jobs, social equity and poverty reduction. New enabling conditions are required to promote the transition to a green economy. Therefore, it is essential to produce new and appropriate policy instruments to foster green growth, where some key sectors are critical, namely the building sector. The building sector is one of the main contributors to the global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Furthermore, the greatest energy saving potential lies in buildings, due to the fact that almost 40% of the final energy consumption takes place in buildings. In this framework, the aim of the project is to help regions in improving, developing and implementing green building policies oriented to the enhancement of energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies as a means of contributing to the development of green regions. By promoting innovative policy solutions for green buildings, namely green public procurement, the project intends to support regions in renovate and retrofit public but also private buildings. This goal consists in considering the public authorities as key players in the process of moving to a green economy, acting as leading examples in introducing energy efficiency measures in public-owned buildings. Besides management and coordination and dissemination and communication activities, the main actions of the initiative include the exchange of experiences oriented to the identification and transfer of good practices and the development of new policy tools. This comprises study visits to locations regarded as references in the scope of the project’s objectives. Site visits are complemented with interregional workshops to debate lessons learnt and improve understanding on key practices. Besides this, regional implementation plans will be carried out by local/regional public authorities with the support of local/regional self-assessment reports and good practices guides as well as local/regional stakeholder seminars. Knowledge partners will participate in the project providing the conceptual and methodological framework and producing policy recommendations to regional and local policies. The partnership, led by INTELI, is integrated by 10 partners from 10 European countries: Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Estonia, Romania, Slovenia, Poland, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

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