In France, as in many other developed countries, the building sector is today both one of the main sectors contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and one of the main sectors consuming final energy. The building sector, and more specifically residential buildings, is therefore at the heart of the challenges of decarbonizing the economy. These challenges include aspects of adaptation to climate change, such as the need to limit the use of air conditioning or to green rooftops and reduce heat-island effects, but also—and above all—aspects of mitigating the contribution to climate change.

The challenges of mitigating climate change in the building sector are partly linked, upstream, to the eco-design of buildings and, downstream, to energy-related issues. Eco-design involves the use of new material manufacturing processes, the development of new materials or alternative materials that are still not widely used, and therefore raises potential difficulties in reorganizing the sector and the value chain. It also raises questions of acceptability for end customers. Energy-related issues, meanwhile, are numerous. They may involve substituting renewable energy for fossil fuels, whose direct consumption remains high in the building sector. They may also involve improving the energy efficiency of buildings through so-called eco-efficient technical solutions. In this regard, the gap between the expected adoption and diffusion of solutions that are a priori profitable and what is actually achieved is striking. Referred to as the Energy Efficiency Gap, it has prompted the implementation of specific public policies.

The EcoReBa research initiative aims to analyze both the causes of and responses to the Energy Efficiency Gap in the more specific context of residential housing renovation. With this in mind, it focuses in particular on evaluating the public policies implemented or to come, in light of the objectives of reducing energy expenditure and reducing the contribution to global warming in the building sector. Particular attention is paid to the French case. To achieve these objectives, the research initiative undertakes:

— The bringing together of actors from the building sector and researchers or research organizations with recognized expertise on mitigation and adaptation issues in the sector related to climate change;
— The collection and processing of any relevant source of information, whether existing but partial and/or scattered databases or new data specifically collected;
— The validation of the work carried out in accordance with academic research standards in the relevant disciplines;
— The communication and dissemination of this work, ensuring as far as possible open access to the sources, methods and tools used.

‍