Creating an Energy Efficient Mortgage for Europe: Towards a New Market Standard sets out a vision for how mortgage lenders and borrowers can come together to help tackle climate change by improving millions of properties across Europe. The report calls on lenders, industry and government to grow a new mass market for energy efficient mortgages and make them available to every borrower on the continent. The proposed standards are now being tested as part of an EU-backed pilot scheme involving banks and financial institutions representing a combined lending power of over €3 trillion, equal to around 20% of the EU’s GDP.
The report tackles how Europe should finance the building of an energy efficiency revolution needed to slash the 40% of Europe’s carbon emissions that come from its buildings – a staggering 97% of which are inefficient. Estimates show that Europe will miss its climate targets unless it renovates at least 23,000 homes every day until 2050. [2]