Message from the Chairman
All aspects of real estate – brokerage, investment, leasing and management – have been gradually and often imperceptibly shaped by EU policy over time, in particular with the decades-long but ultimately successful effort to create an EU Internal Market for Real Estate ensuring property investment flows and the freedom to provide property services without obstacle. Few property professionals are really conscious that EU law enables and accelerates so many of the operations and initiatives that they take for granted, with multiple positive impacts on their businesses’ bottom line.
Since its inception in 1997, EPF has played a vital role in the making of that Internal Market, providing European officials and legislators – including the many national officials and legislators who are central to the whole EU regulatory and political process – with the expertise that they need to understand the complexities of the property sector.
The European Union is now facing the greatest challenge of all: achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The property sector is by far the most important because buildings account for 36% of all EU GHG emissions and 40% of energy consumption. And those general figures hide an even bigger challenge for property. The European Commission calculates that to reach a 55% reduction by 2030, buildings sector emissions will need to fall by 60% by 2030 compared to 2015 levels, with emissions in the residential sector falling by 61%-65% and in the services sector by 54%-61%. Building emissions were reduced by 18% between 2005 and 2017. They now need to fall at almost three times that rate.
Join us as we work with the European authorities to reach those targets in the most efficient and comprehensive way.
Alain Duffoux
Chairman of the Managing Committee