Energy efficient home improvements and the green stimulus

Coronavirus economic stimulus packages need to consider all facets of sustainable development, otherwise we risk creating even greater disasters for ourselves in the future.

 

Energy efficiency must be an integral part of any economic recovery efforts. Doing so will create jobs, reduce energy bills, stimulate SMEs, support electrification and reduce GHG emissions.

 

The discussion paper: “A green, fair and resilient recovery: the role of energy efficiency and domestic renewables home retrofits", outlines the urgent need to increase the pace and scale of investment in sustainable renovation programmes, provides case studies of previous renovation waves that were introduced in stimulus packages, and offers principles and suggestions to facilitate the mobilisation of resources towards sustainable renovation programmes.

 

This paper argues that publicly supported sustainable renovation programmes have and will make economic recovery greener, fairer and more resilient. Innovative programmes that mobilize private capital result in job creation, increased economic activity, energy poverty mitigation and improvements in health and wellbeing of European citizens.

 

The paper reviews energy use in homes and barriers to retrofitting, the deleterious effect of the current lock-down on the construction sector, the historic importance of retrofit programmes in previous stimulus programmes. It ends by looking at some existing national energy efficiency schemes that leverage private debt capital and sets out how these might be augmented with public finance.