About the Project

The goal of EFFECT4buildings is to increase the number of energy efficiency measures implemented in existing public buildings in the Baltic Sea Region. The target group is public building managers who often know what actions are technically possible and sometimes have calculations that show that these investments are profitable, but despite that fails to implement the measures due to financial barriers.

The project has produced a toolbox with financial methods that can improve profitability, facilitate funding and reduce the risk of energy investment in public real estate. Examples of tools are profitability calculations, action packages, contribution optimization, EPC, multifunctional agreements, green leases and economic models for both production and energy use.

EFFECT4buildings connects public property owners with suppliers of solutions to achieve more efficient use of energy in the Baltic Sea Region. Financial tools and methods have been developed through various real cases among partners participating in the project.

Flaggship Status

EFFECT4 buildings is part of the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), being a flagship project under policy area Energy and the horizontal action Sustainable development. Flagship projects demonstrate the progress of the EUSBSR especially well and serve as pilot examples for desired change.  

Project Financing

EFFECT4buildings is implemented with the support from the EU funding Programme Interreg Baltic Sea Region (European Regional Development Fund) and Norwegian national funding.

Project budget: 2 637 013 EUR.

Project Duration

October 2017 – December 2020

Project Background

Energy efficiency in buildings is of strategic importance since they are responsible for 40 % of the energy consumption and 36 % of the CO2 emissions in the EU. Technically there is a potential to reduce energy concumption with at least 50-70 %, so overcoming financial barriers would unlock a lot more investments that contribute towards increasing energy efficiency and at the same time lowering climate impact and creating green growth.

It is a requirement that existing buildings undergoing major renovations apply the minimum energy performance requirements. All new buildings must have a nearly zero energy consumption by 2020.