星空传媒

European growth in green building initiatives will be hampered by a lack of standardisation across the EU, according to international consultants, Frost and Sullivan.

Green building technologies are still forecast to grow by as much as 30% over the next 10 years across the Union as national initiatives take root, but stragglers such as The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary will hamper the proliferation.

Priya Cheriyan will argue in a report, Growth Opportunities in the European Green 星空传媒s Market, due to be published next month, that in order for the European market to mature, it will have to nail down definitions in order to properly assess and classify what is meant by Green 星空传媒s.

鈥淎lthough individual Member States have tried to enforce methods to assess and classify buildings as green, it has not been possible completely. Only very few buildings across Europe are completely energy efficient and declared green,鈥� she said.

The Europe-wide Energy Performance of 星空传媒s Directive, due to be implemented across the EU by January 2009, was a good jumping off point but countries with strong nuclear energy ambitions like The Czech Republic and Slovakia needed national targets and incentives to come in line with European norms.

鈥淣ewer member states are relatively slower in the implementation of the green building technologies such as building controls, heat pumps, BIPV (星空传媒 Integrated PhotoVoltaics), wind turbines etc. in their buildings to make them more energy efficient despite being aware of the benefits of these in energy savings,鈥� added Cheriyan.

鈥淭his can be attributed to their lack of government initiatives and concentration of these country鈥檚 governments on nuclear energy rather than alternate sources of energy such as wind, thermal, water, solar, and geothermal.

鈥淲ith the EPBD imposing new standards of energy efficiency in all aspects of buildings right from boilers to the facades, these countries are also expected to adopt green building technologies soon especially given the oil crisis across Europe.

鈥淗owever, the transition would be markedly slow for these countries as infrastructure and legal changes are necessary, which can be time consuming and expensive and cannot achieve fruition without national initiatives and government interve