Engaging Retail Lenders in Home Renovations

How to unleash trillions of euros in home equity stored in Europe’s buildings

How can we identify which buildings to renovate, and give homeowners across Europe access to low-cost, long-term financing for deep renovation? With business relationships with more than 25 million EU customers, and mortgages accounting for about 80% of lending to households, mortgage lenders are the stakeholder group most connected to Europe’s buildings.

At this event, the Renovate Europe Campaign and Climate Strategy & Partners presented the findings of the Climate Strategy report “Engaging Retail Lenders in Home Renovation”, which calls on EU mortgage lenders to play a more proactive role through the voluntary uptake of Mortgage Portfolio Standards. These standards are included in the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, adopted by the European Parliament on 12 March 2024, and over a third of the top 30 banks in Europe already have a form of them in place.

After a keynote by Peter Sweatman, CEO of Climate Strategy & Partners, two panels with speakers from DG ENER, PCAF, Saint-Gobain, DWS, the European Banking Authority, ING, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank discussed financial frameworks for building renovation, and climate risks in mortgage portfolios. The media partner was FORESIGHT Climate & Energy.

Efficient Buildings Europe is a partner of the Renovate Europe Campaign.