Investor Confidence Project to scale up: ‘global standard’ for energy efficiency

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Clare Taylor

1961 Last modified by the author on 05/10/2016 - 11:22
Investor Confidence Project to scale up: ‘global standard’ for energy efficiency

On October 5th, Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced a strategic vision to work together to develop, deliver and promote EDF’s Investor Confidence Project (ICP) as the premier global underwriting standard for energy efficiency projects. ICP will form part of GBCI’s portfolio of credentials and certifications, and the organizations will work to accelerate investment in energy efficiency.

The announcement follows the rapid adoption of the ICP system, including its certification for Investor-Ready Energy Efficiency™ (IREE) projects in the buildings sector, with successful programs and pilots in the United States and Europe.                                           

Mahesh Ramanujam, president, GBCI, and COO, U.S. Green Building Council, said, “The Investor Confidence Project is another big step in engaging the financial community in driving smart, energy-saving decisions that will deliver higher performance in existing buildings worldwide.”

GBCI will work to scale ICP from a project conceived, incubated and developed at EDF in the U.S. and Europe to a market-based standard, housed at GBCI and capable of global growth and alignment with other GBCI programs.

“The world’s buildings account for about 40 percent of all energy use, and, in major cities like New York and London, that figure as much as doubles. What’s more, up to half of this energy is wasted, said Andy Darrell, Chief of Strategy, Global Energy and Finance at Environmental Defense Fund. ICP offers a system for investors and developers to access the trillion-dollar energy efficiency market, which remains largely untapped and is key to curbing climate change. Our partnership with GBCI builds on ICP’s momentum, mobilizing capital to finance efficiency and cutting harmful pollution around the world,” 

Backed by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program, and with philanthropic support, ICP developed European-wide protocols that facilitate investment in the building energy renovation market by assembling existing best practices and technical standards for developing projects, determining savings estimates, and documenting and verifying results.

“ICP gives building engineers and designers the freedom to use their preferred energy rating system,” said Steve Fawkes, senior energy efficiency expert and advisor to ICP Europe. “ICP sits on top of existing regulation and best practice, and has the potential to integrate the currently fragmented renovation market to aggregate projects and investments into a recognisable asset class.”

ICP works to transform the energy efficiency market by building trust in the financial and environmental results of retrofits. It streamlines transactions, increases the reliability of projected energy savings and standardizes how projects are developed and brought to market. With energy performance protocols for commercial and multifamily buildings, ICP offers investors and developers a roadmap to assess risk and deliver on project results by optimizing performance and monitoring the outcome of energy efficiency investments to generate financial savings and returns. In the long-term, fully utilizing ICP will result in a profitable asset class that maximizes the economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency upgrades.

 

 

 

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