Our members
MAIN GOALS - GENERAL ACTIVITIES - FIELD OF EXPERTISES
CPEA and its member organisations, the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), the Spanish Green Building Council (GBCe), the Danish Green Building Council (GBC DK), the Austrian Green Building Council (ÖGNI) and the Federation of European and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations (REHVA) all share a common purpose: to collaboratively embed sustainability principles and practices within core built environment activities – ranging from planning and design, financing, construction, use and operation, and deconstruction by taking a whole life cycle view. Apart from mobilizing sector participants to adopt net-zero practices and reflecting this ambition in building certification, CPEA and its members are also working on embedding circularity principles within real estate and construction projects while also advocating a just transition. Collectively, CPEA GBC members have a total of more than close to 3500 individual members, including practitioners and companies. REHVA covers 26 national associations, 120.000 engineers and 1500 industry companies. While CPEA’s influencing activities are predominantly focused on EU policy development we are also taking a wider view by working with partners beyond the region, especially in the important area of sustainable finance and ESG.
ACTIVITY RELATED TO LOW GHG AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND RESILIENT BUILDINGS
Given the importance of accelerating and increasing investment flows towards sustainable real estate and construction projects for achieving full market transformation, CPEA's activities are particularly focused on sustainable finance and related issues, such as data availability and quality. Recent and ongoing work includes the following projects:
Testing the market readiness of the EU Taxonomy:
CPEA and its members initiated and undertook a study for the evaluation of the market- readiness of the technical screening criteria for construction and real estate activities with representatives from financial institutions, property owners and investors from Germany, Spain, Austria and Denmark. Collectively, they tested the EU Taxonomy screening criteria for climate change mitigation for construction and real estate activities on 62 buildings. Apart from providing valuable insights and learnings for the participating organisations, CPEA and the project partners also formulated a set of recommendations to the European Commission.
A similar study on the market readiness of the proposed technical screening criteria for a Taxonomy for Circular Economy involving additional green building council partners (Switzerland, Bulgaria and Croatia) is about to be launched with results expected in the autumn.
Translating ESG into a real estate and construction context:
Responding to policy developments and market demand, CPEA has established a multi- stakeholder pan-European ESG Working Group which is geared towards the real estate industry, e.g. project developers, owners, real estate investors, asset managers, managers of corporate real estate, owner-occupiers but also financial institutions, insurance companies and pension funds. The Working Group’s core mission is to work towards greater harmonisation and standardisation by identifying common ESG drivers, challenges and solutions and to collectively agree on an real estate and construction focused ESG definition and associated core indicators.
ESG Verification for the EU Taxonomy:
CPEA also offers its own ESG verification service for the real estate industry to enable verification of alignment with the EU Taxonomy criteria. Applicable to three economic activities as defined by the Taxonomy – new construction, renovation, and acquisition and ownership – it is based on currently applicable Taxonomy criteria, but also includes employment standards, social standards and good governance on the part of involved companies.
The ESG verification service is offered collaboratively by the following CPEA members: The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and the Austrian Sustainable Building Council (ÖGNI). Thereby, it adheres to uniform principles and is applicable throughout Europe.
