The Role of Buildings in Energy Systems

The construction sector consumes significant amounts of natural resources (raw materials, water, energy) during the various phases of its activity that covers construction, operation, and demolition of structures. A large amount of energy is required for the operation of buildings during their overall lives in order to meet their habitats needs—about 40 % of the final energy consumption in the EU in 2012. The EU has set a target for all new buildings to be “nearly zero-energy” by 2020. Considering that construction of new buildings has declined over the last few years and that there is a large stock of old buildings that were constructed without any thermal or energy regulations in several European countries, energy renovation in existing buildings has a high potential for energy efficiency. As environmental issues become increasingly significant, buildings become more energy efficient and the energy needs during their operation decreases, aimed at “nearly zero energy” buildings. Thus, the energy required for construction and, consequently, for the material production, is becoming more and more important. A significant contribution in the efforts to reduce the environmental impacts from construction activities is evaluating their environmental consequences in each stage of their life-cycle. This has led to the development of different “environmental life-cycle” assessment approaches.