EU Peers

Creating a European Community of Practice to increase the residential energy renovation rate

The building sector is essential to achieving the ambitious European climate goals for 2030. Residential buildings alone accounted for more than 25% of final energy consumption in the EU in 2020. The current rate of much-needed energy renovations is insufficient to contribute to the achievement of the climate goals. Integrated Home Renovation Services, or also called One-Stop-Shops for residential energy renovation, are part of the solution to close critical gap between reality and the energy-efficiency objectives for residential homes. Their main aim is to support homeowners by integrating their otherwise fragmented renovation journey into one service. They effectively reduce barriers for homeowners by e.g. simplifying the process, providing tailored reliable information as well as access to subsidies. The diversity of One-Stop-Shops is large and they are still few in numbers as well as geographically dispersed. Additionally, challenges include the fact that not all existing One-Stop-Shops span the whole renovation journey for homeowners. There are also several different types of One-Stop-Shop models for ownership (such as public, private, and hybrid) and for operation (such as information, counselling and coordination).

With the EU-funded project “EU Peers”, Climate Alliance (coordinator of the project), together with its partners aims to strengthen and upscale the One-Stop-Shop movement as key instruments across Europe to significantly increase the residential renovation rate. For that purpose, EU Peers will establish an inclusive European community, engaging and connecting One-Stop-Shop practitioners and stakeholders in a trusting environment for collaborative problem-solving. Concretely, EU Peers will set-up national and transnational Community Platforms open for all practitioners and stakeholders. By organising regular online and physical meetings for exchange and capacity building, they will be the basic access point to the Community. Regular European events and workshops as well as a mentoring programme for new initiatives will complement the work in the Community Platforms. Moreover, EU Peers will work for improved policy and market conditions by increasing the visibility of the movement, formulating policy recommendations and creating a dialog with market players.

EU Peers project partners are Climate Alliance, Energies Demain (FR), Green Building Council Espana (ES), Region Piemonte (IT), Ēku Saglabāšanas un Energotaupības Birojs (LV), Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (IT), Global New Energy Finance, Energy Cities, European Federation of Agencies and Regions for Energy and the Environment, Climate Policy Institute Applied Communications (HU) and South East Energy Agency (IE).

Project funding period: September 2023 – August 2026
co-financed via the LIFE programme 2021-2027 of the European Union

Want to learn more? Contact Jenny-Claire Keilmann at j-c.keilmann(at)climatealliance.org