EU Green Deal for Construction Explained: What It Actually Requires
It isn't one law. It's three regulatory tracks moving on different timelines, EPBD, the revised Construction Products Regulation, and the Renovation Wave, and each one has its own deadline.
The EU Green Deal is not a single law you can read once and comply with. For construction, it is an umbrella covering at least three separate regulatory tracks moving on different timelines: how buildings perform once built, how the products that go into them are declared and traced, and how fast the existing stock gets renovated. Treating it as one thing is how firms end up compliant with one track and blindsided by another.
Why does construction matter so much to the Green Deal?
According to the European Commission, buildings account for 40% of EU energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, and roughly 75% of the EU building stock is currently energy inefficient. At the same time, less than 1% of national building stock is renovated each year. The Green Deal exists because those numbers have to move, and construction is where most of that movement has to happen.
What does the EPBD require for buildings?
The recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive entered into force on 28 May 2024, with a transposition deadline for member states of 29 May 2026. It sets zero emission buildings as the new standard: public buildings must comply from 1 January 2028, and all new buildings from 1 January 2030. A zero emission building produces no on-site fossil fuel emissions, keeps energy consumption minimal through insulation and efficient systems, and draws its energy from renewable sources such as photovoltaic panels or heat pumps, with exceptions where that is genuinely not feasible. New buildings must also be solar ready, and financial incentives for stand-alone fossil fuel boilers ended on 1 January 2025.
What renovation targets apply to existing stock?
The EPBD sets separate targets for buildings that already exist. For non-residential buildings, EU countries must renovate 16% of the worst-performing buildings by 2030 and 26% by 2033. For residential buildings, each country sets its own trajectory to cut average primary energy use by 16% by 2030 and 20 to 22% by 2035, with at least 55% of that reduction coming from the poorest-performing homes. National renovation plans were due in draft form by 31 December 2025, with final plans due by 31 December 2026.
What does the revised CPR require for products?
On the products side, the revised Construction Products Regulation, 2024/3110, entered into force on 7 January 2025 and became practically applicable on 8 January 2026. It replaces the old Declaration of Performance with a Declaration of Performance and Conformity, and for the first time it anchors sustainability as a basic requirement, phasing in environmental assessment gradually from 2026 based on new harmonised standards. It also introduces the concept of a digital product passport for construction products, which we cover in more detail in our guide to the Digital Product Passport for building manufacturers and our EU Digital Product Passport deadlines article. The old regulation continues to apply in parallel for existing approvals until 2040, so this is a gradual transition rather than a cliff edge.
Where do the two tracks meet: whole life carbon
A third strand runs through both. Global warming potential disclosure becomes mandatory from January 2028 for new buildings over 1,000 square metres, and from January 2030 for all new buildings. This is where the EPBD and the CPR start to overlap in practice: a building's disclosed carbon footprint depends on verified, machine readable data about the products used to build it, the same kind of structured, standards-based data we cover in our guide to ISO 19650.
What should you actually do about this?
None of this requires a finished digital strategy today. What it requires is knowing which of the three tracks applies to your role, and by when. A product manufacturer needs to track the CPR and digital product passport timeline. A developer or building owner needs to track the EPBD renovation and zero emission deadlines. A BIM manager or consultant sits across both, because whole life carbon reporting depends on data flowing correctly between the two.
Want your team fluent in the CPR, DPP, and ISO 19650 workflow side of this before the next tender cycle? Our Building the Future: Digital Tools for Construction course covers the revised CPR, CE marking, Digital Product Passports, and the ISO 19650 workflow that whole life carbon reporting depends on. See the full catalogue on our courses page.
Frequently asked questions
It is not a single law but an umbrella covering three separate regulatory tracks that apply to construction: the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which governs how buildings must perform, the revised Construction Products Regulation 2024/3110, which governs how construction products are declared and traced, and the Renovation Wave, which sets targets for upgrading the existing building stock.
Public buildings must meet the zero emission building standard from 1 January 2028, and all new buildings from 1 January 2030. A zero emission building has no on-site fossil fuel emissions and is powered mainly by renewable sources.
It is the revised EU regulation governing construction products, in force since 7 January 2025 and practically applicable from 8 January 2026. It replaces the Declaration of Performance with a Declaration of Performance and Conformity, makes sustainability a basic requirement, and introduces the concept of a digital product passport for construction products.
For non-residential buildings, EU countries must renovate 16% of the worst-performing buildings by 2030 and 26% by 2033. For residential buildings, each country sets its own trajectory to cut average primary energy use by 16% by 2030 and 20 to 22% by 2035, with at least 55% of that reduction coming from the poorest-performing homes.
Global warming potential disclosure becomes mandatory from January 2028 for new buildings over 1,000 square metres, and from January 2030 for all new buildings.
Both. New buildings are covered by the zero emission building standard and whole life carbon disclosure. Existing buildings are covered separately by the EPBD renovation targets, which require a defined share of the worst-performing stock to be upgraded by 2030 and 2033.
DPP.con
The first course bridging policy, data requirements and adoption across the construction life cycle
