Finance and Investment challenges presented in the 8th edition of Renovate Europe’s REDay

Club of Rome first report and early whistle-blowers’ calls from the late 60’s on earth’s environmental stress, echo today with concrete facts and data urging the announced need for change. Energy use and efficiency and the significant 40% of it concerning construction and buildings are key elements of the equation, so does the existing building stock, which needs to drastically reduce its current energy demand. This is particularly true in the European context, and this is which has inspired the Renovate Europe campaign, launched in 2011 at the initiative of several associations and industry companies under the EuroACE -Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings. 

The set goal of the campaign is “to reduce the energy demand of the existing EU building stock by 80% by 2050 as compared to 2005 consumption levels” hence a significant increase on the quality and quantity of the renovation rate of buildings is needed. The current rate of about 1% should reach “3% per year by 2020 and maintain that rate until 2050”. 

The camping has had, as an annual beacon, the REDay event, bringing together stakeholders, experts and policymakers. From the beginning, alongside the reduction of the environmental footprint, building technicalities, and the direct energy and financial savings, broader social and economic implications had been taken into consideration in the campaign activity and put forward in these events. 

First 2011 edition hosted the launch of BPIE (Buildings Performance Institute Europe) study Europe’s Buildings Under the Microscope, analysing Europe’s building stock, quantifying renovation benefits and potential barriers and leads to overcome them. In 2012 edition focus was made clear on REDay’s title Stimulating jobs and growth in Europe, underlining the motley economic opportunity for Europe, also in phase with EU intended social cohesion. The Multiple benefits of energy efficient renovation of buildings - Impact on public finances study by Copenhagen Economics was then presented. This study allowed to confirm, with quantified scenarios, how “the energy efficient renovation of the EU building stock is one of the most attractive and low-cost options available to the EU to save energy, reduce CO2 emissions and reduce dependence on imported fuels,” alongside “permanent annual economic benefits to public finances and to society at large”. (Naess-Schmidt 2012). Furthermore in 2012, funding and investment for energy efficiency in buildings were addressed, form diverse points of view ranging from EU Commission Regional Policy, to real estate and financial sector actors, highlighting Ireland’s ongoing practical experience on promoting residential and commercial upgrading of existing buildings.

 Along updates and the accompanying of the evolution of EED and EPBD directives, later REDays have pertinently kept an eye on investing and operational implementation of deep and energy renovation of buildings. Public and private initiatives in different countries have been explored as well as experiences and cases ranging from individual building projects to the regional and national scopes, making emphasis on the relevant city level of action - with the pioneering examples of Brussels and Dublin policies. Insisting on the “positive returns for public finances of energy efficient renovation programmes”, the gains in productivity of occupants and the impressive savings on health-care for inhabitants of adequately and energy efficient renovated buildings have been underlined (2015, 2017) (...) Read more