Investor Confidence Project Europe Launches Efficiency Certification for Building Upgrades

The Investor Confidence Project (ICP) Europe is launching its new Investor Ready Energy Efficiency™ (IREE) certification today. This new certification for commercial and multifamily residential buildings is awarded to retrofit projects that follow ICP’s framework, and provides investors with more confidence in financial and environmental results.

“We need to harness the power of the market to turn energy efficiency into a true asset – cutting pollution, increasing economic productivity and bringing solid returns to investors,” said the Right Honourable Lord Barker of Battle, former UK Minister of State for the Department of Energy & Climate Change, who serves on the Environmental Defense Fund Europe board. “By standardising energy efficiency projects, ICP has the potential to connect investors with one of the most effective ways to achieve environmental results.”

ICP Europe is a sister project of the Investor Confidence Project launched five years ago in the United States by Environmental Defense Fund, and funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program, to standardise energy efficiency upgrades using rigorous measurement and verification metrics in a way that makes them more attractive to investors and building owners alike.

The investor-ready certification signals to investors that a building retrofit project meets industry best practices at each step of the building retrofit process, from project inception to measurement and verification. ICP’s investor-ready certification leverages best practices that reduce transaction costs and help ensure projects achieve the desired savings.

A National Health Service (NHS) retrofit project at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, announced today, is the first in Europe to use ICP’s investor-ready certification. The £13-million project was developed by the Carbon and Energy Fund with financing from Macquarie Group.

“This is a landmark deal in energy efficiency financing,” said David Mackey at the Carbon and Energy Fund. “We have £100 million worth of projects in the pipeline which will be Investor Ready Energy Efficiency™-certified – a clear signal to the market that we are open for business.”

As it expands, ICP’s investor-ready certification could point the way toward mass-scale financing of energy efficiency in the building sector – where €100 billion per year is needed to reach the EU’s 2020 energy efficiency target. By providing at-a-glance branding for building retrofit projects, this new certification has the potential to help unlock tens of billions of dollars in energy efficiency investments. By working collaboratively with other innovative government, utility and private sector programs, like property-assessed clean energy financing and “pay-for-performance,” ICP will help ensure that energy efficiency delivers on its promise.

“We’ve long known energy efficiency is the one of the cheapest, fastest ways to cut pollution and save customers money”, said Panama Bartholomy, project director for ICP Europe. “Now ICP’s new certification will help unleash this untapped investment opportunity by increasing trust in predicted outcomes and providing a standardization framework for aggregating projects into larger investment portfolios. This is a win-win for investors, building owners, and the tens of thousands of project developers who are working to bring energy efficiency to market.”

ICP Europe’s Ally Network of about 150 market leaders includes the Building Owners’ & Managers Association, Siemens, ARUP, E.On, World Green Building Council, and the Building Performance Institute Europe. The recently launched Investor Network has brought together investors with €1 billion in assets under management looking for energy efficiency opportunities. ICP recently received the prestigious Finance for Resilience (FiRe) award presented by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Interested parties are invited to contribute to ICP Europe’s efforts through the Technical Forum and help make energy efficiency a global asset class by joining the ICP Europe Ally Network.

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Investor Confidence Project Europe aims to enable a marketplace for building owners, project developers, utilities, public programmes, and investors to trade in standardised energy efficiency projects. Click here for more information or connect with us on Twitter @icpeurope.

Environmental Defense Fund (edf.org), a leading international nonprofit organization, creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, and our Energy Exchange blog.