Abstract

The housing stock in Egypt is dominated by informality. Consumption rates increase is more than 5 percent annually. The government in 2005 introduced a building energy efficiency code; it indicates minimum design and application requirements for residential buildings. Submission is mandatory and should lead to about 20 percent energy savings with higher comfort levels. Nevertheless, compliance with building codes is almost nonexistent, electricity is subsidized, and incentives to adopt energy efficient patterns are very low. The article introduces the code and discusses the impact of its introduction on national authorities, the academic community, and the private sector; it analyses factors and challenges that obstacle a realistic compliance of current regulations; and it presents an enforcement strategy that is based on three main approaches that include retrofit. The strategy aims to empower energy efficiency and enforce sustainable patterns in the residential sector and provides a support guiding tool for decision-makers and future scenarios.