SMARTER4EU - SMARTER Finance for EU

A new EU Life-funded project is aiming to accelerate the roll-out of certified green homes across Europe – including the development and adoption of over €100bn worth of green mortgages, loans and development finance. Led by the Romania Green Building Council, the Smarter Finance for EU project has been set up to move the market decisively towards credible green home certifications for new build and retrofit projects. To ensure credible environmental performance and strong governance, the project will meet the green finance definitions in the EU’s new taxonomy for sustainable activities, while utilizing the EU’s Level(s) sustainable buildings framework and CEN standards. Led by Habitat for Humanity, the project’s energy poverty element will aim to improve the health and comfort, financial stability, and energy performance of very low income, vulnerable households. It will also facilitate European and global discussions on what knowledge and lessons learned can be shared when implementing solutions that combine government incentives with private bank financing. The intent is to demonstrate that energy poverty solutions are “bankable” by private sector banks, provided they are supported with well-designed, hybrid solutions – such as a mixture of private finance and state subsidy – and that the banks are supported with an easy-to-use method of measuring energy efficiency and green performance.

Energy Poverty component of the project includes activities such as:

• collaboration with Ukrainian municipalities and stakeholders on restoration of Ukrainian housing stock, contributing to the country’s short and long term recovery
• identification of existing solutions or creating new solutions for using hybrid finance to finance innovation to improve the health and comfort, financial stability, and energy performance of very low income/ vulnerable households.
• online courses free to Municipalities, NGOs and other relevant stakeholders to explain the essentials of residential green construction and the financial benefits for vulnerable persons and governments.
• Free consultations for municipalities and relevant public bodies aimed at building of commitments to undertake capacity building and pilot test Green Homes certifications in their affordable housing projects.

Some concrete key performance indicators (KPIs) of the project include: “Hybrid” green finance solutions to address Energy Poverty presented by the SMARTER4EU project are accepted by governments and other key stakeholders as desirable policies to adopt - Memorandum of Understanding signed with 30 Municipalities or relevant public sector bodies.

The project started in 2023 and will be completed in 2025.

Main beneficiaries: energy poor communities, low income consumers, vulnerable groups, and others.

It addressed the topics of: communities, energy efficiency, renovation, vulnerable consumers, finance, retrofitting.

The partners of the project are: RoGBC - Romania Green Building Council (Romania), IrishGBC (Ireland), EnerSave – EnerSave Capital (Luxembourg), Temple Media (Ireland), EECU – Association of Energy Efficient Cities Ukraine (Ukraine), GBCe - GBC España (Spain), ADENE (Portugal), HFH – Habitat for Humanity International (Slovakia), EUEA – European Ukrainian Energy Agency (Ukraine).