Adrian Joyce, secretary general of Efficient Buildings Europe, was recently in Sydney to deliver a keynote at the Energy Efficiency Council’s Efficient Electric Homes: Market Acceleration Summit. He represents a peak industry association that lobbies for ambitious policies and legislation for energy-efficient, decarbonised and flexible buildings. The following is a reflection of the similarities and differences between Australia and Europe.
Lars Petersen, CEO of Velux, often says “partnership is the new leadership,” and that became the lens through which I viewed my recent trip to Australia. I came to deliver a keynote, but I was equally eager to learn from Australia’s experience and share insights from Europe.
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This was a stimulating trip that started with a hybrid roundtable with almost 100 New South Wales public servants. The pace never slowed, with back-to-back stakeholder meetings in the days before and after the event. While I was invited here to speak and share my expertise and knowledge, I found that listening and joining the discussions with the government and stakeholders was highly informative and rewarding. What follows is a distillation of the themes that stood out for me.
Shared challenges, different approaches
Australia and Europe face similar challenges: ageing housing, diverse climates, and complex governance. Australia is responding to high energy prices, climate urgency, and policy shifts; Europe faces all of these, plus energy security pressures.
One noticeable difference between the two regions’ responses that I noted is the prioritisation of generation, storage and efficiency technologies. In Europe, thanks to our “energy efficiency first” principle, the order of interventions is clear: optimise your demand first and you’ll optimise the need for generation and storage assets. Whole of home renovation, insulation, heating and cooling, windows, ventilation and renewables, is standard practice, before technologies like solar and batteries enter the picture. In sun-rich Australia, solar and batteries seem to take centre stage, but I can’t help but think that an efficiency first approach would deliver healthier, cheaper-to-run and more resilient homes, while helping households get more out of their solar and batteries.
Knowing what we’re upgrading
Europe’s energy performance certificates (or EPCs) were introduced in 2002 and stumbled early with inconsistent methods and weak enforcement. Today, they are a powerful market tool and, in many countries, form the backbone of good policy design.
In addition, EPCs are having direct impacts on the value of homes: Each increment from D to A attracts a 6 per cent price premium on average, and the opposite is true from D to F.
It took many years for EPCs to be fully implemented at scale, with a slow rollout due to limited disclosure requirements and a lack of data recording. Australia has a chance to leapfrog Europe and bypass those delays by getting it right from the outset.
Here technology could help. I was impressed with the RapidRate tool being developed by CSIRO which should help speed up ratings of existing buildings. Equally, several European Union countries (Germany, France, and some Spanish Regions) are also leveraging new technologies to rate buildings quickly using thermal flyovers and AI analysis to generate proxy energy ratings across whole neighbourhoods, accurate to within about five per cent of in-person assessments.
The European experience shows that EPCs are also fundamental to provide the evidence base that underpinning a range of renovation policies and programs that work across varied ownership structures. From 2026, data from EPCs will be used by each member state to establish national trajectories that will progressively ratchet up the energy performance of the building stock to reach zero-emission buildings by 2050.
Differences in the housing market: a challenge and an opportunity
Coordination in the EU has been easier where housing is concentrated and in segments where the state is involved, like social housing. Fragmented ownership brings split incentives: landlords often won’t invest if their tenants are the only ones to benefit. Europe and Australia face a similar challenge, but Australia’s higher share of rental housing and much shorter rental agreements offer both challenges and opportunities: On the one hand, rental property owners may be more focused on maximising their rental returns in a competitive market for homes than ensuring their tenants are comfortable and content through energy renovations. On the other hand, the short duration of rental agreements means that once mandatory disclosure of buildings’ energy performance is in place at the point of sale or lease, I expect that the market would respond quickly.
Energy poverty is a housing problem
Energy poverty frequently came up in my discussions as cold, damp homes in winter and overheated ones in summer are not just uncomfortable – they damage health. In the EU, there are over 47 million people living in energy poverty, and it has spurred the EU to target the most vulnerable and worst-performing buildings first.
This shows that equity must be part of the primary motivation for energy renovation policies and not bolted on as an afterthought. Energy policymakers would also do well to team up with their health policy counterparts to deliver “joined up” approaches to building renovation policy, capitalising on the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. Several times during my visit, I recounted the story of doctors in Liverpool, who, during the 2010s, were empowered to prescribe energy efficiency retrofits to treat respiratory illness. More innovative thinking like this would benefit both Europe and Australia.
The tricky politics of gas
EU rules adopted in 2025 cut incentives for gas appliances, and many countries now ban gas connections for new homes – a path some Australian jurisdictions are taking. These policies respond to climate risk, volatile prices and, in Europe’s case, significant energy security concerns.
They can also provoke backlash, which is why the EU is building social funds to soften the impact, but the redistribution task is large. The lesson for Australia is straightforward: design compensatory measures early and be transparent about who benefits…and who pays.
Leveraging partnerships to accelerate the global renovation wave
Australia and Europe are grappling with the same core task: electrifying millions of homes and upgrading an ageing, mixed building stock for a net zero future. Both regions are navigating fragmented ownership, uneven regulatory settings and communities with vastly different capacities to act. Both are balancing ambition with practicality as climate impacts escalate.
What I saw reflected this reality, with a welcome focus on genuine partnership between industry and government. The conversations reflected a shared understanding that progress will depend as much on collaboration and trust as it will on policy design.
I leave Australia heartened by what I have seen here. It is clear that Australian businesses, policymakers and advocates are energised by the task of energy renovating Australian homes, united behind the sorts of goals for home retrofits that feel both familiar and appropriate for the task at hand.
To get to where we need to go requires tenacity and creativity, and with a decent injection of political will, I’m confident Australia will soon join the global renovation wave.
