To this day, many techniques, tools and approaches have been developed and tested either on a lab scale or in pilot buildings around Europe. These demonstrations have served as great showcases for circular built environments, but they are yet to be demonstrated at higher level. Copenhagen, Hamburg, Helsinki region (City of Vantaa) and Greater London have teamed up with partners from the entire built environment value chain. The results will have a direct uptake in the value chain and enable cities to initiate circular transition. CIRCuIT will demonstrate three innovative solutions in the four cities: dismantle buildings to reuse materials; transformation and refurbishment; and design for disassembly and flexible construction. CIRCuIT will develop urban planning instruments to support cities in implementing circular construction solutions and initiate changes at system level; implement a Circularity Hub, a data platform to evaluate progress of circular economy and regenerative capacity; and set up a knowledge sharing structure, the CIRCuIT Academy, to promote upscaling of solutions. London, Hamburg, Helsinki region and Copenhagen have the ambition to bridge the implementation gap from individual pilots to the actual circular and regenerative city, by demonstrating the application of current and future developed tools and instruments for circular built environment at a city level in 36 demonstration projects. It is the intention to boost the regenerative capacity of the three cities and Helsinki region, and finalise the development of an advanced set of indicators for impact measurement in an effective and cross-European monitoring programme. The aim is to increase the regenerative capacity in the four cities, and to reduce the yearly consumption of virgin raw material by 20% in new built environments, and to show cost savings of 15%.

BUILD UPON: Empower stakeholders to assist public authorities. 1. Provide large-scale capacity building or engagement activities: The key objective is to engage and empower a ‘critical mass’ of over 1,000 stakeholders with the process of defining and implementing their long-term national renovation strategy (Article 4, Energy Efficiency Directive). Process carried out by an important organisational innovation, ‘Green Building Councils’ (GBCs), in BG,CZ,ES, HR, IT, IE, FI, LV, RO, SE, SI, SK and TR. GBCs are multi-stakeholder platforms, formalising a ‘Regional Action Network’ of connected actors who will ensure the continuation of the activities beyond the project’s duration. 2. Target specific actors among a wide spectrum of stakeholders: The renovation stakeholder ecosystem will be mapped across the Project countries, to understand precisely which organisations will be needed to define and implement Article 4 and how this system functions. BUILD UPON has received over 100 letters of support across all its target groups. 3. Demonstrate a strong European added value: The complex landscape of renovation initiatives (both public policy and market driven) will be compressed in a living ‘RenoWiki’ resource, to enable stakeholder understanding and dialogue, and ensure all stakeholders are ‘on the same page’. The stakeholder ‘community’ will be developed through a series of nearly 80 workshops across the region at local, national and European level. These will explore collaborative and solution focused working methods to deliver the stakeholder buy-in required by government to define and implement ambitious and viable Article 4 strategies. Experts involved with the design and management of identified best practice renovation initiatives will help stakeholders assess feasibility for implementing these in other countries, to move best practice sharing beyond information to action, and an incubator for new concepts will help launch further implementation orientated projects.

BUILD UPON2 proposes to address one of the main barriers stopping proper public management, and consequent upscaling of Deep Energy Efficiency Renovation: the lack of an adequate, widely shared Impact Framework. Buildings are one of the biggest contributors to climate change in Europe and account for over 40% of the EU’s final energy demand and 36% of CO2 emissions. To meet EU’s energy efficiency targets for 2020 and 2030 and long-term goal under the revised EPBD to decarbonise it’s building stock by 2050, renovation becomes crucial, and its rate needs to increase to at least 2-3% per annum. National Renovation Strategies under the EED aimed to accelerate the rate of renovation, however these have not proved effective. The 2018 recast of the EPBD strengthens the role of these Strategies and obliges MS to set out a roadmap to decarbonised building stock by 2050, supported by a suite of measurable progress indicators and milestones. BUILD UPON2 proposes to work with local, national and European stakeholders to create a Multi-Level Renovation Impact Framework that contains a suite of milestones and measurable progress indicators for building renovation strategies, integrating data and insights from the city level. This Framework will serve as a tool for Cities in delivering the EPBD and ensure that local initiatives are aligned with national and European policies. A methodology will be developed to indicate how the Framework reporting system can be integrated into Sustainable Energy Actions Plans (SECAPs), how to use the Framework and how data to support the indicators will be collected and used. The Framework will be tested with 8 pilot cities and the results of this testing phase will be used to update the Framework and create policy recommendations, ensuring that the Framework can be replicated across Europe and help local, regional and national authorities deliver on European energy efficiency goals. The Project Consortium ascertains a successful delivery.

In the EU, buildings are responsible for 40% of total energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions. By improving the energy efficiency (EE) of buildings, the EU’s total energy consumption could be reduced by 5-6% and CO2 emissions by 5%. Considering that the building stock constitutes the largest single energy consumer in the EU, and that the value of the European mortgage market is equal to 53% of EU’s GDP, there is huge potential to bridge financial innovation and the EE world and to unlock the benefits of mortgage financing to support EE to the benefit of all. The EeMAP Project intends to deliver a standardised framework based on a market benchmark to stimulate EE investment by households in the EU’s housing stock by way of a private banking financing mechanism. Three key outputs will be: a framework for a building energy passport, recording the EE history of a property by recognising the improvements made; a framework that can integrate the “green value” of a property through EE and collected market data; the framework for an EE mortgage product. Accordingly, EE investment will become financially viable, as market transparency will be improved. The Project will create synergies in the mortgage and covered bond value chain, delivering a virtuous circle between lenders, borrowers and investors from the origination of the energy efficient mortgage to the pooling of EE collateral for the purpose of energy efficient covered bonds. EeMAP has long-term potential to drive housing markets across Europe in a sustainable manner and encourage significant energy reductions in line with the EU’s aspirations and global climate change demands. Concretely, issuing 35,000 green mortgages a year can achieve savings of 88 GWh per annum. The EeMAP Project brings together all the necessary competencies (financial, building and EE, property valuation, energy provision and data) to develop a credible, workable and marketable pan-European energy efficient mortgage initiative.