Big opportunity in building sector

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) long-awaited Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) report has been published, highlighting how energy use in buildings can be cut by 60% by 2050.

‘Transforming the Market: Energy Efficiency in Buildings’ is the result of the WBCSD’s four-year, US$15 million project, which was sponsored by 14 multinational companies.

The project took a bottom-up, market-driven approach to understanding the barriers to lower energy use. The report says large and attractive opportunities exist to reduce buildings’ energy use at lower costs and higher returns than other sectors.

They claim these reductions are fundamental to help achieve theInternational Energy Agency’s (IEA) target of a 77% reduction in the planet’s carbon footprint against the 2050 baseline to reach the stabilised CO2 levels called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The study’s recommendations are based on a data inventory of Brazil, China, the EU, India, Japan and US, which together account for 70% of the world’s GDP.

At energy prices proportionate to oil at US$60 per barrel and depending on the local context, building energy-efficiency investments totalling US$150 billion annually in the six EEB regions studied would reduce related energy use and corresponding carbon footprints by about 40%, with five-year discounted paybacks for the owners. A further US$150 billion with paybacks of between five and 10 years adds 12 percentage points and brings the total reduction to slightly more than half.

The report makes six key recommendations:• Strengthen building codes and energy labelling for increased transparency;• Use subsidies and price signals to incentivise energy-efficient investments;• Encourage integrated design approaches and innovations;• Develop and use advanced technology to enable energy-saving behaviour;• Develop workforce capacity for energy saving;• Mobilise for an energy-aware culture.

Fine. But all this can happen only when and if a nation and its people think that they are in the midst of a crisis. Till then, things will be half measure. As long as the power flows in, wasteful consumption cannot be curbed. A combination of steep hikes and disciplined load-sheddings could possibly influence change in this pattern. Right?