EPCs must sit at the centre of EU building policy delivery, supporting the enforcement of minimum energy performance standards, national building renovation plans, zero-emission building targets, renovation financing, and policy monitoring. Yet despite their central role, EPC systems across Europe face common structural bottlenecks: fragmented databases, weak quality assurance, limited actionability of recommendations, and low public awareness.

Drawing on a comparative assessment of Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Poland, this report shows that implementation maturity varies considerably across countries, underlining the need for differentiated and sequenced policy responses. To address this, the guidelines introduce a replication and clustering framework built around four policy pillars: governance, core EPC scheme, support functions, and communication. This framework enables Member States to self-position, prioritise reforms, and deploy proportionate measures aligned with EPBD requirements.

Practical recommendations cover database consolidation, calculation method standardisation, training and accreditation of EPC experts, independent quality control, public communication strategies, and embedding EPC data within monitoring and evaluation frameworks.