Happy Holidays from the EuroPACE Team
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Our annual holiday message, EuroPACE Talk with the Climate Bonds Initiative, COP 24 Highlights and more.
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As we are approaching the end of this extraordinary 2018, there is a lot to celebrate for the EuroPACE initiative.
At the end of 2017, EASME - the Executive Agency for SMEs of the European Commission - awarded us a grant to adapt, implement and scale to Europe the PACE financing model for home and building renovation, which was successfully deployed in the US.
Deploying this type of innovative financing solution in the EU market represents an enormous challenge as each country has its own legal, fiscal and market landscape. In March, the EuroPACE initiative officially kicked-off in Barcelona, Spain with the full commitment of its 8 partner organizations from 4 different countries.
Ever since, a significant effort has been dedicated to the viability assessment of the EuroPACE mechanism in the EU-28. This daunting task led to the identification of 7 EU members where EuroPACE might be implemented in the short term, confirming the potential and attractiveness of this solution.
In the meanwhile, the city of Olot and the other EuroPACE partners involved in testing this financing tool on the ground, have been working around-the-clock to design and set-up the first EuroPACE pilot in the north of Catalunya, Spain. Incredible support and interest has been shown at regional, national and European level, confirming the other half of the equation: not only the PACE mechanism can be applied to a vast majority of the European market but there is also a strong demand for such solution combining people-centric technical assistance with long-term affordable financing.
In 2019 we will be fully focused on the most challenging part: bringing EuroPACE to the commercial stage and being able to offer this solution to citizens and homeowners. There will be obstacles and hurdles, but we are firmly motivated to overcome any of them with one clear shared goal in mind: maximizing positive socio-economic and environmental impact.
We won’t be able to achieve that without active engagement and participation from each one of you. Thank you for following EuroPACE through seminars, workshops, webinars and this newsletter; please keep following and supporting us as EuroPACE is ultimately all about people.
Davide Cannarozzi
GNE Finance – Managing Partner
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Featured EuroPACE Milestones:
- Based on the legal and fiscal analysis of the EU 28, we selected 7 countries: Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain, for in-depth evaluation.
- Took significant steps in EuroPACE pilot design, including identifying eligible technologies, target buildings and consumer engagement strategies.
- Conducted a phone survey of 500 Olot residents to learn about their needs and attitudes to home renovation.
- Designed strategies to alleviate energy poverty and foster employment of vulnerable groups through the EuroPACE pilot in Olot.
- Expanded the EuroPACE Community to 600+ members.
- Attended and presented at 30+ events featuring EuroPACE as a leading platform for home renovation.
- Launched the EuroPACE website and began building social media presence with nearly 350 followers on Twitter.
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EuroPACE Talk: “Motivating People to Renovate their Homes.”
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This month we decide to tackle arguably one of the hottest topics in the energy efficiency industry today - how to motivate consumers to act. If we want to increase and triple home and building renovation rates in Europe, we must start with making it appealing for the European citizens. In this EuroPACE Talk with Prashant Vaze from the Climate Bonds Initiative, we tackle these and other issues.
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The 3rd EuroPACE Talk is dedicated to a consumer engagement with Prashant Vaze from Climate Bonds Initiative.
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Based on your experience in home and building renovation space, how do we persuade people to invest in improving their home’s energy efficiency and why?
Few people wake up in the morning with a burning desire to go out and buy energy efficiency from the shop or the web. It’s something that is sold to them either by tradesmen while undertaking other improvements to their home, because they’re persuaded about its benefits from people they trust like family members, or they get to see if for themselves in a neighbour’s home.. continue reading.
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What are some of the mistakes or shortcoming you’ve seen in the market when it comes to consumer engagement?
Unfocused ad campaigns to raise awareness, exhort people to switch off, or make extravagant claims like turning off lights will save the planet. Overly focusing on saving money is often not that effective either as people are often unconvinced by claims of future savings... continue reading.
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EuroPACE team at COP 24 in Poland
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The annual international climate summit, COP 24, ended on a positive note and the much anticipated Paris "rulebook" was adopted by the delegates on Saturday, December 15th. Learn more about the outcomes of COP 24 from a detailed reporting by the Carbon Brief. The EuroPACE team took part in building the momentum for clean and sustainable economy. Karolina Zubel from CASE (pictured above) spoke about innovative financing tools and home renovation at the ENERGIES 2050 Pavilion. See a short video with Karolina Zubel speaking about EuroPACE initiative. |
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Getting to Know the EuroPACE Team
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EuroPACE team is composed of 8 organizations from 4 countries. Each partner has unique expertise and experience. In the next few months we will be featuring team members from all the partners.
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Jordi Salvador is a recognized expert in economics and fiscal regulations of local administrations. He serves as an auditor general at the City of Olot. He is leading a taskforce of Spanish law experts, auditors and comptrollers from several cities in charge of drafting an amendment to the Spanish law to enable on-tax financing. Jordi is also responsible for the adoption of internal administration processes to implement EuroPACE in Olot. |
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Dr. Stanislav Bieliei serves as a Project Manager at CASE – Center for Social and Economic Research. Stanislav communicates with experts from the EU-28 countries in order to organize the work aimed to assess the suitability of EU28 countries for the adoption of an on-tax mechanism, a comprehensive review into the tax and regulatory frameworks. Learn more about Stanislav. |
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Tomás Kidd is a political scientist currently working as a consultant for UpSocial. Alongside his team, Tomás is leading the assessment and action plan design for the roll-out of EuroPACE, a tool for tackling two social challenges: reducing energy poverty and fostering employment of vulnerable groups. Learn more and connect with Tomas. |
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Keeping PACE with the Latest Developments
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We've compiled a list of relevant and provocative pieces to read on your holiday break.
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- Better Places for People released its ‘Guide to Healthier Homes and a Healthier Planet’. Download it here.
- E.ON conducted a study evaluating the willingness consumers to change their behaviour for climate reasons. Learn more.
- If you've missed the webinar on Building Passports developed by the EuroACE and BUILD UP, you can listen to it here.
- The new UN Environment and IEA report calls for Future Proof Buildings in its annual Global Status Report.
- EBRD presented a recent expansion of its green bond investment work at COP24. Read on.
- An interesting and provocative piece by VOX about how to speed up the clean energy transition. Read on.
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Thank you for being part of the EuroPACE Community
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We look forward to working with you to make EuroPACE a success.
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Sincerely,
The EuroPACE Partners
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