New publication on modernising building codes

At her last working day at the IEA, Yamina SAHEB launched the joint IEA-UNDP report on how building energy codes can be modernised with the aim of limiting pressure on global energy supply, improving energy security, and contributing to environmental sustainability.

The IEA and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) partnered to analyse current practices in the design and implementation of building energy codes. The objective of this collaboration is to consolidate existing efforts and to encourage more attention to the role of the built environment in a low-carbon and climate-resilient world. In fact, buildings are the largest consumers of energy worldwide and will continue to be a source of increasing energy demand going forward. Globally, the building sector’s final energy consumption doubled between 1971 and 2010 to reach 2794 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe), driven primarily by population increase and economic growth. Under current policies, the global energy demand of buildings is projected by the IEA experts to grow by an additional 838 Mtoe by 2035 compared to 2010.

The new report, “Modernizing building energy codes to secure our global energy future,” seeks to share lessons learned between IEA member countries and non-IEA countries. It report sets out key steps in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of building codes. The aim is twofold i) addressing the renovation challenge of the existing buildings stock in IEA member countries, ii) making sure new buildings are nearly zero energy consumption especially in non IEA countries, where more than half of the buildings stock needed by 2050 has yet to be built.

The report is available free on the IEA website.