Worried about 2024, building craftsmen call on the government to rely on “TPE solutions”

The 2023 figures for the sector's activity, presented on January 17 during the CAPEB press conference, are clear. If the decline in activity experienced by the building trades over the whole of 2023 is moderate (-0,6% in volume), while this sector has been penalized by the fall in new construction (- 4,5% in the 4th quarter of 2023), this is thanks to the quasi-stability of activity in renovation, supported by work to improve energy performance (+1,5% in volume), market of renovation in which craft construction companies are leaders.

With this result, building craftsmanship will hold up better in 2023 than construction as a whole. In 2023, the growth of energy renovation activity could have been much better if artisanal companies had had the means to express their potential.

CAPEB warns of the incomprehensible paradox they face. The scale of the needs for renovations, particularly energy, and support measures have never been so important in 2023. And yet, energy performance work, which recorded growth of 2022% in 3,8, has experienced in 2023, a continued decline in activity to end at +1,5%.

CAPEB cannot be satisfied with this. The issue goes well beyond the self-interest of craft construction companies. It is, in fact, about the collective capacity to do more and better to meet the environmental and societal challenges that we must meet.

For CAPEB, the Government must, in 2024, rely on the building VSE which, given its potential, is capable of driving activity in the renovation sector upwards. And as far as new properties are concerned, CAPEB is convinced that we must reinvent the real estate development model by definitively breaking with the systems of the past. An evolution that will necessarily take place over time.

The 620.000 craft construction companies, present in all territories, are, for their part, ready to meet the challenges of renovation and more particularly that of energy performance.

To do this, these VSEs must have the means to be fully present in these markets. However, the systems that govern them have the effect of excluding them. In 2023, CAPEB denounced this absurdity, in particular with regard to the reform of MaPrimeRénov', applicable since January 1, 2024, through its Last Chance Appeal which aimed to eliminate the very harmful consequences that this reform will have on the necessary acceleration of energy renovation work, on individuals and on the activity of the companies which carry them out.

The entry into force of this reform will not have the effect of putting an end to the fight that CAPEB is waging to change its terms. Quite the contrary.

CAPEB will continue to take the necessary consideration of the specificities of artisanal construction companies. As part of MaPrimeRénov’ whose success depends on it. And more broadly so that their voice counts to the extent that they represent for our economy, our territories, our future.

The increase in the number of members registered by CAPEB (+ 6.000 members in 5 years) demonstrates that building craftsmen share this ambitious vision that CAPEB has for the sector.

For Jean-Christophe REPON, President of CAPEB: “Obtain the recognition that VSEs deserve, develop the terms of MaPrimeRénov', simplify the life of businesses and in particular the RGE and CEE systems, facilitate the creation of temporary business groups (GME), implement real career paths. energy renovation work, accelerating the necessary attractiveness that must be given to our professions, these are the priorities of CAPEB in 2024 to consolidate VSEs as a factor of success for France. »

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.