BUILDING REFURBISHMENT – APPROACHING SUSTAINABILITY IN A EUROPEAN CONTEXT: CASE STUDY OF ORADEA CITY, ROMANIA

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the world forever and all the limits imposed against spreading the virus, determined changes in humankind’s perspective and behaviour: concerns on health increased, and so did the needs to explore and live in the moment. Definitely, the latter perspective is prone to higher consumption, and so the high demand impacts inflation levels, as well. Since the pandemic started, Romania faced increasing prices, but the last gas price is the ultimate challenge affecting even more the living standards. The need to reduce consumption and save energy is evident more then ever, and this challenge should be considered as an opportunity for highlighting the importance, and shaping sustainable consumption behaviour. Nowadays energy efficiency measures are a must in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and also the import costs of energy, improving the security of supply, and achieving a sustainable energy supply. This paper focuses on implementing the European Green Deal’s objective in Romania, on building refurbishments. These and retrofitting are very popular practices around Europe, used in improving households’ comfort and reducing heating bills; these are the direct effects the population perceives, but there are a lot more concerning energy resources and pollution. The present paper assess them focusing on Oradea, a Western Romanian city. Our research involves direct observation of investments and heating consumption’s level, and our first findings prove a positive impact of these strategies on consumption, even if the pandemic changed the way of living and working, and so the whole consumption level was affected.