Challenges Croatia is facing ahead of the C4E Forum 2025

After the announcement that the C4E Forum will be held in Croatia in 2025, we asked the Croatian nominee for the C4E Champion Award 2023 about her reaction to this news and about real challenges that Croatia is facing.

A short interview with more details below:

How did you react when you found out that the C4E forum will be held in Croatia next year?

Of course, my colleagues and I, who work on building renovations, were thrilled.

We have been participating in this forum for several years, and it is certainly an honor for us to host colleagues from neighboring countries in Croatia.

It is also a kind of recognition for Croatia for everything it has done in the field of energy renovation and comprehensive renovation, which has connected earthquake recovery that increases seismic resistance with energy renovation.

Why do you think it is good that such conferences are held at the level of Central and Eastern Europe?

It is certainly good. We support and welcome such conferences.

These countries, which are members, are also neighbouring countries, they share part of a common history, have a similar way of building, similar architectural heritage, and have a lot to share. There is great potential for renovation in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, for both public and private buildings.

There are also great challenges for all of us until 2050. It is necessary to establish new financial mechanisms so that we can renovate all buildings, and therefore the exchange of experiences and best practices from our countries is very important.

What do you think is the biggest challenge this year and next year in the construction and legislation sector? Is it MEPS or the creation of National Building Rehabilitation Plans? or both? Or something else?

We are already on a wave of renovations, and in Croatia, one of our biggest challenges in the next two years will be the lack of qualified labor, which we have already encountered. This is something we need to work on systematically, and within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, we have several reforms addressing this issue. We are educating both domestic workers and workers from third countries, and we are also developing new study programs, so we are working on many fronts.

Additionally, in the next two years, member states will have to transpose the Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings into their legislation, and this part will be less challenging than the implementation. Given that for the first time we have a mandatory renovation obligation that we did not have prescribed in this way, and considering that this will engage very large financial resources and a very large number of workers, it will be a huge challenge to transfer and achieve everything in the coming period. Therefore, we all need to work together. We must not lose sight of the “energy efficiency first” principle because if the renovation is reduced to some cheaper and shallow measures that are short-term profitable or just to fulfill the renovation on paper, it will be counterproductive to all our goals.

About the interviewee:

Irena Kriz-Selendic is currently Director of Sector, Energy Efficiency in Buildings in Croatian Ministry of Construction, Spatial Planning and State Property. Worked on the establishment of the entire regulatory framework for energy efficiency in buildings in Croatia, including Long term renovation strategy and on the development of national energy renovation programs for multi-apartment buildings, family houses, public sector buildings, cultural heritage buildings and energy poverty reduction programs. She participated in numerous EU projects (IPA 2012 “Strengthening Energy Efficiency in Buildings in Croatia”, Concerted Action for EPBD, Concerted Action for EED, CEI, BUILD UPON, BUILD-UP SKILLS project (COSKILLSS) and is a member of the committee at the European Commission that works on the implementation of EU directives in the field of energy efficiency. Irena received the annual award in 2019 for Person of the Year for Green construction and sustainable development, awarded by the Croatian Council for Green Construction and HUPFAS (Croatian Association of Thermal Facade Systems Manufacturers) and HUEC (Croatian Association of Energy Certifiers) for a special contribution to the promotion of green construction and sustainable development in Croatia.