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EUSEW and So
This blog has now moved. Please visit Zerochampion.com and update your bookmarks
Back from a very wet Brussels, dodging in and out of extraordinarily named buildings (Berlaymont, Breydel, Charlemagne) and each one down a different rainswept traffic-ridden street from a central roundabout, it was clear that the EU's Sustainable Energy Week would take more cracking than just one day. The requirements to show passports, remove outwear and pass through scanners whenever entering a building slowed the whole thing down somewhat and made me pine (extraordinarily) for the NEC. Getting into the enormous Berlaymont, where the Commissioners commission for a press briefing, involved registration of passport numbers and took about half an hour.
EPBD Mark II?
Today, the EPBD is being 'recast' which means strengthened and improved according to some. Yet very few countries have implemented it in full. Because each country has gone about things it's own way, it's hard to tell - or even decide - where everyone is on implementation. That's even given the RICS fine report of December last year detailing the progress the countries have made. The Carbon Trust in their EnR report said Britain was doing very well, while lacking incentives, while veteran campaigner, Andrew Warren of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, said we were 'some way behind in trying to implement it.' Graham Sutherland, a project director for the Buildings Directive, said the idea was to make the EPBD a non-issue and so it's just a part of the building codes for each country. This has been going on since 2002, don't forget. Easier said than done in Europe. But I ran into two chain smoking men from the Ministry of Works, Turkey, who were going to be implementing the methodology in the next six months and then introducing it for exchange of properties six months after that. This was to 'harmonise with the EU in order to gain acceptance.' One problem is that they don't seem to have the methodology to hand. Did I know where they could find any? I gave them a card and said I would send them the SBEM. That should shut them up.
EPCs are just the beginning.
There's a reason why Sutherland wants to 'move on.' He's funding an impressive array of projects through his Intelligent Energy group, which makes energy efficiency the starting point for energy efficiency. Some of the idea which the group has funded are working with municipalities to communicate their building's energy grade to promote competition between them, working with housing associations to use structural funds to improve their energy usage and the creation of a training pack to help assessors reach the grade across Europe. Maybe I will have a look at them if I have time.
Stuff and Nonsense
I wasn't struck by a sense of panic or alarm in terms of collateral production. I barely dipped a toe into the exhibition, but still came out weighed down with folders and printed sheets, lollipops and pens. If this group of people, all involved in interesting projects and technologies, can't overcome their natural instincts to Dump a Whole Load of Stuff on visiting 'decision makers' it's hard to believe anyone can.
To the sunset of Imperial Japan and step on it!
I did see some efficiency in Brussels, however: jumping into my cab on the way to the Eurostar, I was met by the sound of Japanese people being machine gunned. My driver had the Last Samurai playing on his mobile DVD player. As we took to the road, I said I'd asked for the garre and he was taking me into the guerre! Brushing off my pun like a mean tip, he switched on the subtitles (what with all the chatting he was having trouble following, I guess) and explained that he was working all hours and didn't get much time to watch films at home, so he combined watching them with driving customers about. It's a cracking plan but if I drove a taxi in Brussels I would probably prefer to study antique maps or, perhaps, sketch in charcoal during my wasted hours steering a 1,500kg block of steel and plastic around the capital of Europe.
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