‘Hoe financier je duurzaam vastgoed?’ Die vraag staat centraal tijdens het H2020 – BuildInterest Event, waarin een Europees consortium concrete resultaten presenteert en waardebepaling van duurzaam vastgoed aan het licht brengt. In een Engelstalige blog vertelt Serena Maioli, projectmanager van ASTER, over BUILD LAB, een publiek financieringsplatform.

The concept of financing platform has different shades of meaning, but always refers to places, real or virtual, where the integration of different assets, funds or expertises, helps to maintain or increase the availability of structured financing. This can be done in many ways: BUILD LAB is the Innovation and Finance Lab for Sustainable Buildings in the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy),  born within the Horizon 2020 project BUILDINTEREST, approaching the scope of a financing platform with the perspective of a public-led advisory board.

BUILD LAB is indeed a laboratory aimed at facilitating the dialogue among the operators of the energy efficiency sector and working on the development of tools and concrete models to improve the quality and financeability of energy efficiency initiatives. Coordinated by ASTER, the Innovation and Technology Transfer in-house agency of the Emilia-Romagna Region, BUILD LAB is led by the strategic goals of the public authority, such as energy consumption and GhG emissions reduction or construction sector recovery, but at the same time addresses the market gaps that prevent investors, financial institutions and building owners from investing in building renovation.

Serena Maioli, projectmanager ASTER

BUILD LAB was officially launched in March 2017 and in its first year of activities defined a strategic plan through its Steering Committee, made up of high-level regional experts and institutions, and activated a cycle of workshops named Topic Oriented Groups with the aims of:

• Standardize the procedures and tools for the development of renovation projects in order to optimize their success rate through the assessment of bankability by private or public financers
• Make a more efficient use of public funding, finding the existing gaps that can be adequately covered with specialized financial tools and regulatory revisions
• Enhance skills and knowledge in the construction chain, improving the integration among different expertises.

BUILD LAB based the workshops on the analysis of three pilot cases of renovation, brought by projects promoters and developers: ACER Ferrara, the social housing agency managing 6.700 apartment units in the Province of Ferrara, Legacoop Emilia-Romagna, a cooperative association promoting innovation for their associated housing cooperative, architecture and engineering firms, construction and service companies, and ASPPI Bologna, a small owners association in Bologna.

A group of regulatory, financial and technical experts were selected to give advices to the pilot cases promoters and therefore collecting a complete spectrum of challenges, experiences and market gaps. Finally, industry and energy sector testimonials were involved to widen the group’s expertise. Each stakeholder brought to the table a part of the whole renovation challenge.

The outcomes of this first “round” of activities, presented during the Financing platforms in Actions event at MAST in Bologna, consist in the elaboration of a model for sustainable project delivery that presents a list of actions to be taken by the different operators involved in the renovation process in order to reduce human and economic resources spent for preparing a good renovation proposal and increase its success rate. On the other side, a set of bankability criteria have been identified that could be adopted as eligibility standards for projects and beneficiaries that would like to access to regional public funding and guarantee.

BUILD LAB will participate to the Green Buildinvest event “How to make energy efficiency measures in real estate common practice in Amsterdam: come and discover more about Emilia-Romagna financing platform’s results!

Serena is een van de sprekers tijdens het H2020 Event. Inschrijven? Dat kan nog! Benieuwd naar het volledige programma? Bekijk dan de overzichtspagina. Smaakt naar meer? Lees maandag de volgende blog over H2020. Dan publiceren we een interview over Bpifrance, de Franse publieke bank voor investeringen.