EIB energy lending policy
The Housing Europe view
Brussels, 11 April 2019 | Published in Energy, Economy
On March 28th the public consultation launched by the European Investment Bank (EIB) on its energy lending policy ended. Housing Europe did reply to it, highlighting the importance of a lending policy that makes sense in terms of energy savings and cost efficiency.
To the proposed approach to support only buildings that go beyond the mandatory nZEB standard after 2021, Housing Europe replies that as the challenge of energy efficiency in buildings lies mostly in the existing stock, using conditionality for access to funding makes sense for the existing stock of buildings. By definition, going beyond nZEB after 2021 will generate relatively small gains in terms of efficiency for a cost which will be desproportionalety higher. It would therefore not be cost effective nor efficient in terms of energy savings to set a financial conditionality for new buildings for the EIB lending practice.