I-climabuilt

The project:

Buildings account for around 40% of total energy use and 36% of CO₂ emissions in Europe. According to the recast Directive on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD) all new buildings after 2020 should reach nearly zero energy levels, meaning that they should demonstrate very low energy needs mainly covered by renewable energy sources. EU 2030 targets aim at least 40% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels), at least 32% share for renewable energy, at least 32.5% improvement in energy efficiency, and 80% reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. Therefore, an urgent need is present for a deep market transformation by deploying efficient materials and technologies in the construction sector to support the real implementation of nearly zero-energy/emission and plus-energy buildings with high indoor environment quality across Europe.

I-climabuilt, through its interdisciplinary approach, aims to tackle the aspects that have been a constraint to nearly zero energy/emission buildings by the strong connection between all involved parties from material and technical system testing and manufacturing to component development taking into account the economic and financial factors which in turn define and control the societal acceptance particularly regarding building envelope solutions.

I-climabuilt project aims to form a cross-domain business ecosystem combining the capabilities of different experts, building the connection between suppliers and users, based on the cooperation within interdisciplinary entities to support new product development/upscaling and testing, satisfy customer needs based on a case-by-case assessment of the underlying barriers of each technology, and eventually incorporate the next round of innovations in building envelope materials and technical systems. The goal here is to support the translation of research results into innovations and help small high-tech firms to scale up and cope with the continuous rising of technological complexity and by providing a Single-Entry-Point for necessary infrastructures and tools to test, validate and upscale new technological solutions.

The project brings together a strong consortium composed of 16 outstanding research centres and 11 SMEs with complementary profiles and large expertise.