40% of all energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the European Union arise in private and public buildings. Thus, major advancements have to be made in this sector to reach the EU’s climate and energy targets. Energy-efficient buildings will also contribute to the vision of secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy for citizens and businesses as well as generating additional societal, environmental and economic benefits. To strengthen policies that promote retrofitting and modernizing existing buildings, the EU has adopted the Directive 2012/27/EU on Energy Efficiency (EED). It requires EU Member States and candidate countries to establish a long-term strategy for mobilizing investment in the renovation of the national building by 30 April 2014, and every 3 years thereafter. These action plans are an integral part of a country’s National Energy Efficiency Action Plans. As of May 2015, 27 EU Member States have adhered to the requirement of Article 4, EED, and submitted their national building renovation strategy, albeit most did not meet the April deadline and some submitted their strategies as late as March 2015. However, the requirements to prepare these renovation strategies appear to have overburdened most EU member states. According to an analysis conducted by the Buildings Performance Institute Europe, only five countries have at least adequately complied with the five core elements described in Article 4 of the EED. To date, no renovation strategy has been submitted that can count as a ‘best practice’ and provide orientation for other countries. The project EmBuild (Empower public authorities to establish a long-term strategy for mobilizing investment in the energy efficient renovation of the building stock) is designed to empower public authorities at local, regional and national level, to formulate renovation strategies for the building sector that foster deep renovation and facilitate the acceleration of the renovation.

EUROPA project will develop an Energy Efficiency Subscription (a set of technical specifications, procedures and standard contractual arrangements) ensuring guaranteed energy savings from the deep renovation of residential buildings. This will be coupled with a technical assistance service, in the form of a one stop shop, enabling coordination and support in the end users investment journey. The Energy Efficiency Subscription will consider standards for products and for the level of expertise of craftsmen and professionals, it will define technical standard investment packages and the contractual specifications with the level of performance to be guaranteed. It will also consider the measurement and verification procedure of the performance after the renovation works. The set of standards and specifications will be based on a common format, tailored to the framework conditions of the involved regions and delivered via a web platform. The coordination and support action will include activities for the promotion of deep energy renovation in the residential building sector working on motivation for end users, engaging market operators as subscribers and by offering a technical assistance service in order to make sure that standards are met and investments intentions turns into reality. The project will save 10 GWh of primary energy and it will trigger 37 million Euro of concrete sustainable energy investments in the following regions: Piemonte (IT), Alto Alentejo (PT), Allgau (DE), Isère (FR) and Latvia, involving the renovation of more than 1000 dwellings. Besides, the project will ensure the replicability of the approach across Europe with a customized training activity offered to at least 20 organizations and other dissemination activities in order to widespread the project impact. A mutual learning activity will follow the project partners during the project implementation ensuring knowledge exchange and the strengthening of their technical and soft skills.