Belgium’s path toward a climate-neutral building stock remains uncertain, as renovation rates and policy consistency fall short of the European 2050 targets. The transition toward a zero-carbon building stock is slowed by multiple technical, economic, and behavioral barriers that limit the adoption of deep renovation strategies. Recent reforms, including the reduction and withdrawal of...
The 2024 European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive requires that, by 2030, Member States must impose limit values on the whole-life carbon emissions of new buildings, and develop a roadmap of stricter limit values over time. In Belgium, the limit values and roadmap must still be defined. Recent research developed reference (benchmark) values for the life cycle environmental impacts of...
This article analyses the impact of the Flemish energy renovation obligation on house prices. Introduced in January 2023, the policy requires buyers of the most energy-inefficient homes to renovate within five years of purchase to obtain at least a class D energy performance certificate (EPC). Using a difference-in-differences technique and a unique dataset that merges Belgian dwelling...
This study assesses heating system decarbonization options for a residential neighborhood in Ghent, offering relevant insights for Belgian and European climate targets. The area comprises over seventy historically valuable housings from the 19th to 21st centuries -e.g., terraced houses from the 1850s, 1950s semi-detached homes, and 2021 apartment blocks- making it a representative case for...
