ENER/C3/2010-578

To allow for a broader investigation into possible evidence of higher property values/higher rents for more energy efficient buildings, a study covering several EU MS and diverse building types should be carried out. For this the following countries should be looked at: Ireland, Belgium (region of Flanders), UK, Austria, Cyprus, France and Portugal. The first five countries all have explicit legislation in place to ensure that the prospective buyer or tenant gets to see the certificate well ahead of the finalisation of the transaction. Portugal on the other hand does not require that, but given that it has an easily accessible and comprehensive database for EPCs, it can be taken as a test case for the hypothesis that there is only an impact on the prices of properties if the information on the energy-related characteristics is handed out early on in the process. The residential and the office building sector, the new built and the existing building stock as well as the rental and the sales market shall be looked at. It is up to the consultant to determine for which country which segment shall be studied and this should inter alia be based on the availability of data. At least one investigation should cover the market for new office buildings and for at least two countries the focus should be on the residential rental market. The period to be covered should ideally start in the first year during which the obligation to issue a certificate entered into force in the country and take into account the latest available data. The overall objective of the tender is to analyse the possible link between the main energy performance information given on the EPC and the value of a property. This should be based on the specificities of a national EPC scheme as well as data gathered from EPCs about the energy-related criteria of buildings, combined with data on the sales and rents of these objects. Secondly the impacts of the design of the underlying policy regime for the national certification system has to be looked at. A discussion of the results should explore to what extent the property value can be traced back to the energy efficiency of a building and to what extent the result of the study is influenced by the detected qualities of the certification scheme in the given EU MS. Furthermore policy recommendations for the future of energy performance certification shall be given.