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Encourage the EU policy to go beyond technocratic indicators as an approach to the greening of the buildings sector, by fully respecting national and local/regional specificity of challenges and opportunities. In this context, the CoR might stress the underlying ecological and economic challenges at the local and regional level for progress towards improved resource efficiency in the buildings sector. Subject to comments by the members.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS



- asks the Commission to analyse ways and means in which the Committee and local and regional authorities can be involved in the consultations which are to follow from the present communication;

- considers that, for local and regional authorities across the EU, the priority is to move forward in their efforts to develop common indicators which are a pre-requisite to the development of common objectives and standards in greening the construction sector;

- calls for the local and regional level to be consulted on indicators for resource efficient buildings to be prepared by the European Commission and to be given the opportunity to contribute to these indicators throughout the development process;

- supports the Commission communication in its endeavour to emphasise that disseminating best practice plays an important role in the transition towards more resource-efficient buildings. In this respect, cooperation projects between groups of regions with similar features must have priority. Regions which have particular skills issues must be supported by cooperation mechanisms focusing on difficulties related to the transfer of knowledge;

- considers that special attention must be given to the specific problems of rural regions and small and medium-sized towns, as these regions are less efficient than large towns. Their defining features need to be recognised in the definition of standards, targets and other implementation measures. The Smart Cities research priority area in Horizon 2020 should instead be called Smart Cities and Regions, and complemented by a new priority area entitled Smart Rural Regions and Towns.