Europe’s tourism sector is joining the mission to tackle climate change. UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai stated that the high level of commitment from the tourism sector shows concern for addressing climate change. The neZEH project aims to support European hotels to comply with the nearly-Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) regulations, which all EU member states are required to meet by 2020. Sixteen hotels across seven European countries have signed up to use the neZEH toolkit, which evaluates the energy performance of hotels through a questionnaire and identifies options for energy efficiency. The European Parliament has stressed the need to reduce legislative barriers and introduce supporting measures to promote zero energy growth. Co-funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme, neZEH aims to accelerate the rate of large-scale renovations into nZEB. The project currently has ten partners across seven European countries.
