Policy instruments to promote sustainable summer comfort in buildings

Despite the available knowledge about technologies for passive cooling, cooling energy consumption is still increasing in Europe. The international project KeepCool addressed this gap, searching for intelligent ways to promote the market penetration of passive cooling solutions. KeepCool introduced an integrated approach called “sustainable summer comfort”, and shed light on several main barriers to its broad market implementation. This paper provides recommendations to overcome these market barriers, using also the policy opportunities offered by the European Directives on Performance of Buildings and on End-use Energy Efficiency and Energy Services.