Romania Green Building Council launches recommendations for the National Renovation Strategy

The Romania Green Building Council launched a set of recommendations for Romania's new National Renovation Strategy, which the Romanian Government should present to the European Commission by end of April 2017

2017-04-03 00:49:44 - From the Print Edition

The assumption is that an ambitious building renovation strategy by the Romanian Government would provide Romanians with significant economic, social, health and environmental benefits.
The recommendations on which the National Renovation Strategy must focus address issues such as safety and health in buildings as the main parameters of measuring the quality of life; ensuring renovation works quality and creating defined legislation, stronger building codes and clear rules and precise criteria for energy efficient / green renovations; protecting vulnerable citizens from energy poverty by prioritizing costs reductions through energy, repair and health savings; and incentives from the government for deep green renovations in the private sector.

"The recommendations following the Build Upon project come to encourage an ambitious commitment of the Romanian Government," said Monica Ardeleanu, RoGBC executive director and project manager for Build Upon. "Implementing the recommendations would help market transformation, together with number of other significant benefits, from reducing energy poverty to increasing the quality of life, sustainable devolvement, the transition to a eco circular economy, to ensuring energy safety and helping the transition to Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs)."

Build Upon, a European project run by 13 Green Building Councils in Europe, is aimed at helping European countries design and implement strong, long-term national strategies for the renovation of their buildings. The project defined a set of recommendations for each country involved, to help reach significant social benefits for European citizens: health benefits, safety, increased quality of living, affordable housing, sustainable development, new jobs, innovation, preservation of cultural patrimony, and social inclusion for current and future generations. The project enabled a series of public consultations involving more than 2000 stakeholders and organisations interested in sustainable building renovation and issued a set of recommendations for the national renovation strategies of countries involved.

The Romanian Green Building Council represented Romania in the project and led the public consultation events consisting of ten consultation sessions in seven cities in six regions of Romania, engaging more than 350 stakeholders, Government officials and central and local authorities, business and academic environment representatives, professional associations, NGOs, residential landlords′ associations and other members of civil society. The consultation process led to the general confirmation that extended renovation should be Romania′s objective over the next three years.

The National Renovation Strategy was initially presented in 2014, with April 30th, 2017 being the deadline when EU countries′ governments must present an updated version.