The Clean Energy for all Europeans policy package led to the revision of several key pieces of legislation related to the renovation of buildings. Most notable was the revision of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) that now sets a clear direction for the full decarbonisation of the European building stock by 2050. By March 2020, Member States must provide their new renovation strategy to the European Commission (new EPBD requirement), first introduced in 2012 by the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

The new European legislation is meant to help in drafting renovation strategies targeting specific issues such as split-incentive dilemmas or fuel poverty to realise the wider benefits of energy renovation. For all benefits to unfold in practice, renovation strategies should be as ambitious as possible and aim for deep renovation. Most importantly, they should be designed in a way that facilitates implementation and reduces hurdles for implementers at the local level, because this is rarely straightforward and comes with challenges.

This guide runs through the steps that should be taken and content that should be included to meet these new requirements and produce a thorough and successful strategy, highlighting specific areas that need to be addressed in Bulgaria and/or Romania and examples of good practice by different Member States. The list of elements to include in the renovation strategy, as set out in the Directive, provides a basic content outline. This has been structured to follow the phases of development and implementation. The key steps in developing a renovation strategy can be divided into six phases, with stakeholder consultation throughout the process, and the feedback loop to review and update the strategy regularly.

This guide was developed under the framework of the project ‘Our Buildings‘, supported by the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The project aims at developing capacity and transferring knowledge to enable municipalities and civil society to integrate building renovation strategies in local and National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) in Romania and Bulgaria.