LEVEL(S)

Mr. Kestutis Sadauskas, Director for Circular Economy and Green Growth at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for the Environment (DG ENV) explains about Level(s): “Level(s) is a broad framework, which covers key areas during the full life cycle of buildings, carbon, material, water, but also health and comfort, resilience to climate change and risk and value.” Level(s) is aiming at a common language for stakeholders and professionals across Europe, aiming to create a more innovative, sustainable and user-friendly built environment.

This is an ongoing activity as we notice from an open letter to JRC, involved in the development. There is work to do to properly interconnect Level(s) with the terminology, definitions and holistic approach included in the set of EPB standards and the results of related H2020 project such as ALDREN and CEN-CE.

Additional to this: Circularity, which is part of Level(s) is addressed in several articles.

EPBD: THE NEED FOR A REVISION UNDER THE RENOVATION WAVE

An intermedial status report about this ongoing revision. The previous revision of the EPBD (April 2018) introducing an obligation on EU Member States to develop national renovation strategies to achieve a decarbonised building stock by 2050 and stricter requirements for the use of EPB standards and inspection, among other provisions. A new revision was originally planned for 2026 but the EU Commission assessed that the EPBD would need to be strengthened again in order to meet the objective of at least doubling the annual renovation rate of buildings by 2030.

Oversight of many European projects related to EU policy implementation.

More than 10 EU projects, ongoing and some finished, in which REHVA and/or its members are involved are shortly described. Their interrelation and the connection to the EPBD implementation is demonstrated.

VENTILATION AND IEQ

May 13 2021 a group of 36 scientists under leadership of prof. Lidia Morawska published an article in SCIENCE[*] with the title: “A paradigm shift to combat indoor respiratory infection, building ventilation system must get much better” This article closes with the statement: “The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how unprepared the world was to respond to it, despite the knowledge gained from past pandemics. A paradigm shift is needed on the scale that occurred when Chadwick’s Sanitary Report in 1842 led the British government to encourage cities to organize clean water supplies and centralized sewage systems. In the 21st century, we need to establish the foundations to ensure that the air in our buildings is clean with a substantially reduced pathogen count, contributing to the building occupants’ health, just as we expect for the water coming out of our taps.”

Sufficient reason for our REHVA community of experts to take up this challenge. The editorial Board of the RJ welcomes articles to reflect on this outcry and present concrete steps towards a healthier indoor environment. The 2021-06 (December 2021) issue will be reserved for this! To be more specific: we should develop new models and new standards that are more performance based, that try to find a good balance between energy use (related to ventilation) and health/comfort on the other side, that address also the risk for transmission of infectious diseases via the air etc.