5 Non-residential sector
5.4 Age of the non-residential building stock
In general, the age of the non-residential building stock is not well documented at na-tional level. Appropriate data were found only for Finland, Germany and the Nether-lands (see Table 5.4). The EURIMA report “Mitigation of CO2 emissions from the building stock” also provides estimates of the construction periods of small and large non-residential buildings (see Table 5.5). The underlying data for these estimates are not publicly available. According to the data from Table 5.4 and Table 5.5 it seems that a considerable part of the non-residential building stock was built before the oil crisis: 64% at European level, 43% for Finland, 74% for Germany and 49% for the Netherlands.
Figure 5.2: Non-residential build-ing stock by type of buildbuild-ing (in % m2 or in % number of buildings (*). For Austria, health care and educational buildings are joined in one category).
% < 1960 1960 – 1975 1976-1985
1986-1995 1996-2005 Total
Germany1 74.3 11.6 14.1 n.a. 100
Netherlands2 39.2 19.5 11.9 14.3 15.1 100
<1950 1951-1960
1961-1970
1971-1980
1981-1990
1991-2000
Finland3 19.9 8.6 14.7 18.9 24.1 13.8 100
1 Year 1998; estimate based on EUROPARC - Der Gebäudebestand in Europa: Deutschland, Frank-reich, Großbritannien, Italien und Spanien, Deutsche Gesamtausgabe Februar 1999; table Germany 2.10.1.
2 Monitor energy saving built environment 2006, SenterNovem
3 Ekorem report; the non-residential sector consists of the categories “business & office buildings”, which includes offices, shops, restaurants, hotels and transport buildings, “public service buildings”
and “leisure buildings”.
<1975 1975-1990 1991-1992 Total
Million m2 % Million m2 % Million m2 % Million m2 % European
stock <1000 m2
835 64 232 18 244 18 1311 100
European stock >1000 m2
1940 64 538 18 565 18 3043
* Data from EURIMA & EuroACE, Mitigation of CO2 emissions from the building stock, Ecofys 2007. The data are only for buildings in the cold and moderate climatic zones: sum of all eight coun-tries of the present study, minus Switzerland, plus Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and Luxemburg.
In Finland, the Ekorem report gives data on the age of the building stock for the categories “business and office buildings”, which includes offices, shops, restaurants, hotels and transport buildings, “public service buildings” and “leisure buildings”.
These data are shown in Figure 5.3.
There are also specific data on the building stock owned by municipalities. Munici-palities own 9% of the total Finnish building stock. The construction periods of non-residential buildings managed by municipalities can be found in Table E.1, Appendix E. 22% of office buildings, 24% of cultural buildings, 15% of schools, 16% of health care buildings and 9% of nursing homes were built before 1949. The stock built be-tween 1950 and 1974 amounts to 36% of office buildings, 18% of cultural buildings, 51% of educational buildings, 38% of health care buildings and 20% of nursing homes. The Finnish non-residential building stock – at least the part owned by mu-nicipalities – seems to be older on average than the residential building stock, espe-cially educational buildings of which 66% were built before the oil crisis.
Table 5.4: Age of the non-residential building stock in Ger-many and the Netherlands (%)
Table 5.5: Average age of the European non-residential building stock for buildings smaller and lar-ger than 1000 m2*
Age of the Finnish non-residential building stock
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Business and Office
Public services Leisure
Million m2
1991-2000 1981-1990 1971-1980 1961-1970 1951-1960
<1950
For France, there are only data about the evolution of the building stock from 1986 to 1990, see Table 5.6.
million m2 Office buildings Educational Health care
1986 118 132 76
1987 119 133 77
1988 122 122 77
1989 127 127 78
1990 131 131 79
*data from ADEME, AICVF, Programmer, concevoir, gérer – enseignement, Bureaux, Santé, édition Pyc -1993
In Germany, there are data available by sub-sector, see Figure 5.4. A large part of the German non-residential building stock seems to be quite old (built before 1978).
Figure 5.3: Age of the Finnish non-residential building stock, accord-ing to the Ekorem report
Table 5.6: Evolution of the French non-residential building stock be-tween 1986 and 1990*
Age of the German non-residential building stock
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Office buildings
Shopping and leisure
Educational Health care
Million m2
1988-1997 1978-1987
<1978
* estimate based on EUROPARC, Year 1998 - Der Gebäudebestand in Europa: Deutschland, Frank-reich, Großbritannien, Italien und Spanien, Deutsche Gesamtausgabe Februar 1999; table Germany 2.10.1
In the Netherlands, there are also data available by sub-sector, see Figure 5.5. More than 50% of the non-residential building stock was built before the oil crisis; in par-ticular, shopping buildings seem to be older.
Figure 5.4: Age of the German non-residential building stock* (no data after 1997)
Figure 5.5: Age of the Dutch non-residential building stock*
Age of the non-residential Dutch building stock
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Office
Shopping
Educational
Hospitals
Nursing and rest
1996-2005 1986-1995 1976-1985 1960-1975
<1960
In Switzerland, there are data relating ownership structure and building period, see Table 5.7. In general, the pre-war non-residential building stock represents a large part of the total stock, varying between 31% and 51% depending on the tenure. By contrast, the building stock built after 1991 represents less than 10% of the non-residential building stock.
% <1919 1919-1945 1946-1970 1971-1990 1991-2000 Total Owned -
indi-viduals
37% 14% 22% 19% 8% 100%
Owned - corpo-rate
28% 13% 24% 24% 11% 100%
Owned - non-profit, assoc.
30% 15% 27% 23% 8% 103%
Owned - mu-nic., cantons, state
40% 13% 23% 18% 5% 99%
Owned - em-ployer
20% 11% 26% 32% 11% 100%
Other build-ings
36% 14% 26% 20% 7% 103%
* Data from BFS 2000. The category “Other buildings” includes buildings used exclusively for collec-tive living (old people's homes, hotels, hospitals, monasteries) and buildings with primarily non-residential aims but which include at least one (inhabited or habitable) dwelling (factories, schools, of-fices etc).
5.5 Reference buildings
Non-residential reference buildings have been defined in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Table 5.7: Ownership structure and building periods in the Swiss non-residential building stock*
In France, reference buildings for thermal regulations were defined. They are based on the results of former building stock studies. In these reference buildings, the floor plans are not fixed but characteristics such as the U-value of the building envelope, reference heating system, lighting system and glass percentage with regard to total fa-çade area are fixed. In addition to this, typical buildings (with a fixed floor plan) were defined that are used to calculate mandatory requirements or to demonstrate the ef-fects of energy saving measures (see Francois 1994, Richard 1996 and Lahrech 1996).
In Germany, a typology of non-residential buildings was developed in Gierga (1994), but it seems that the use of these references buildings is not widely applied.
In the Netherlands, eight building types were selected as reference buildings for the non-residential sector. These reference buildings are used to define the feasibility of energy saving measures in an early stage of the design process and to demonstrate the potential of energy saving measures. A description of these reference buildings can be found in Appendix E, Table E.2.