The adoption of the European 'GreenHomes' directive will lead to the renovation of over 5.5 million public and private buildings to make them more energy efficient, FILLEA CGIL, a union representing carpenters and affiliated workers, said on Wednesday.
FILLEA said that under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive "more than 500,000 public buildings and about five million private buildings with the worst performance" will have to be requalified - or over 40%.
"Not to mention new buildings," it added.
The Directive, which was adopted by the European Parliament on Tuesday and still needs to be formally endorsed by the Council of Ministers in order to become law, sets new emissions-reduction targets for residential and non-residentialbuildings including buildings used by public authorities in order to progressively reduce greenhouses gas emissions and energy consumption in the EU building sector and make it climateneutral by 2050.
"The approval of the Green Homes directive is positive news, but we must now equip ourselves as a country system in industrial, regulatory and financial terms to achieve the goals of energy efficiency and modernization of public and private buildings and to have professionalized workers, qualified companies and national producers of materials and technologies," said secretary general of Fillea CGIL Alessandro Genovesi.
"The government should immediately begin a discussion with social partners and professionals in the sector to prepare the National Plan for Building Renovation to be presented to the European Union as early as the end of 2025," he added.
"2025 is tomorrow and 2030 is practically the day after tomorrow, we don't have a minute to spare," concluded Genovesi.
Photo: Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin.
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