Energy: EU project to fund sustainable construction in the Third Sector gets underway

Funding sustainable building renovations in the Third Sector thanks to an innovative tool that will accelerate the ecological transition and fight energy poverty. This is the goal of the European project SER-Social Energy Renovations. The project includes Italian CGM Finance, Politecnico di Milano, ENEA and Fratello Sole, -a consortium of non-profit organizations involved in combating energy poverty- jointly with the Spanish company GNE Finance, leader of the project, Secours Catholique-Caritas France and the Bulgarian branch of the company Econoler.

The project, funded under the Horizon 2020 program, over the course of three years will develop a "de-risking" mechanism to reduce the risk associated with loans and allow access to credit also to individuals with limited economic capacity. The mechanism will include the analysis and technical standardization of the defining process of energy efficiency interventions of buildings.

The projects will be aggregated and undergo a social impact assessment before funding, allowing investors to access safe, effective investments, in line with ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) criteria and social enterprises to carry out “ green” renovations at low cost and with the technical  support needed.

“The benefits of this project go far beyond energy savings, because they will stimulate an inclusive and green post-COVID recovery; according to our estimates, 200 million euro will be invested in clean energy over the next 5 years creating approximately 3,000 new jobs and avoiding almost 900 tons of CO2 emissions ", Davide Cannarozzi, founder and CEO of GNE Financ, pointed out.

"GNE Finance has a large portfolio of international collaboration projects and for the management of SER loans in Italy, it will be able to count on the support of CGM Finance - consortium financial system for the development of Italian social cooperation - financial arm of the CGM group, www. cgm.coop, the largest network of social enterprises in Italy, with around 58 territorial consortia and 700 cooperatives and social enterprises ”.

ENEA and Fratello Sole will involve entities in the social services sector (Third Sector) and will select buildings dedicated to non-profit activities on which to intervene with energy efficient and sustainable building renovations. The works will be carried out by Fratello Sole Energie Solidali - ESCo, stemmed from the joint venture between Fratello Sole Scarl and Iren Energia.

“The Third Sector accounts for 13% of the European workforce, engages 28.3 million full-time equivalent workers and has a significant economic and social weight. Today, however, it is considered a risky investment area and has difficulties in accessing funding for sustainable building renovations ", Federico Testa, President of ENEA, pointed out" This project, recognized by the Commission as providing a valuable contribution to the ecological transition, will help us to create good finance for energy investments in favor of those engaged in the social sector ”, Testa said.

"With this project we aim to implement the Social Green Deal, providing economic support to the non-profit sector  to make its important contribution to sustainability and recover resources to invest in social activities", Fabio Gerosa, President of Fratello Sole. "We have been collaborating with ENEA for three years in promoting joint awareness-raising, training and information activities and initiatives on issues of energy poverty and in support of non-profit organizations. SER a further stage on this path ”.

As part of the project, Polytechnic University of Milan will identify the evaluation indicators and analyse the social impact of the projects while Secours Catholique-Caritas France and the Bulgarian branch of Econoler will explore the replicability of the tool in other European countries.

Institutional and private investors are invited to contact GNE Finance for further information on the SER project and on the planned investments.

For Italy, a set of sustainable renovations in the non-profit sector, replicable in Bulgaria and France, and informative round tables in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, will be promoted     .

According to Istat data (2018 survey), the Third Sector in Italy has about 360,000 active institutions with over 350,000 employees. Compared to 2001, the number of institutions has increased by about 53%, and the number of employees recorded an equal increase.

The growth in the incidence of non-profit compared to the "profit" production sectors is also significant: between 2001 and 2018, the percentage of Third Sector institutions compared to businesses increased from 5.8% to 8.2% and, in terms of employees, the incidence increased from 4.8% to 6.9%.

For more information please contact:

Alessandro Fiorini, ENEA - Energy Efficiency Policy Monitoring Laboratory, alessandro.fiorini@enea.it