Project description
Changing perceptions of green buildings
The design, construction and operation of buildings are responsible for the depletion of many of the world’s natural resources. While switching to greener buildings is a key solution, many banks and owners are hesitant to invest in them. The EU-funded SMARTER project has set out to change mindsets. Its goal is to help families think about the financial benefits of energy-efficient measures when looking at the cost of buying a home; moreover, it will provide investors and developers with a better understanding of energy performance criteria. To achieve these goals, SMARTER has developed the Green Homes Investment Platform and the Green Homes Solution Providers ecosystem.
Objective
"Many citizens, particularly in nascent green building markets, make suboptimal decisions in the design and construction choices for renovation approaches and new home purchases due to a fear of bank financing. Borrowing sufficiently to bring forward necessary resources to build homes properly both reduces citizens’ “Total Cost of Monthly Ownership” (loan payment plus energy, health and repair costs) while unlocking a critical increase of construction budgets facilitating ownership of the greenest, high-quality homes. Financing Green Homes with the borrower subject to lower monthly operating costs is less risky to banks which provide discounted credit without harming profits.
The SMARTER project effectively communicates the benefits of Green Homes to citizens and other key stakeholders to bring a systemic solution to a systemic problem that inhibits the financial industry to design and offer green finance products and the citizens to understand and request them. SMARTER replicates a successful “Green Homes and Green Mortgage” program to 12 new countries, addresses barriers and brings green innovation with relevant research and cluster formation, adapts essential tools for administration and communication, and effectively expands collection of actual energy and financial performance to improve risk analysis with local data. Public investment is leveraged and ambitious green EU targets are supported as banks, developers, and green solution providers all contribute budgets to increase private financing for building exemplary homes.
The SMARTER “Green Homes Investment Platform” guides new programs to a suitably ambitious, common definition of green investments and facilitates institutional investment by collaborating with ongoing initiatives including EeMAP and EEFIG; aligning with EC objectives such as “Mainstreaming Energy Efficiency Finance” and advancing the Financial, Technical and Behavioral de-risking championed by “Smart Finance for Smart Buildings""."
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CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
020334 Bucuresti
Romania
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.