It is no secret that national Green Building Councils are drivers of sustainable change and practices in EU member states. The Romania Green Building Council (RoGBC) has taken this mission one step further by incorporating the Level(s) framework in activities of their “SMARTER  Finance For Families” Horizon 2020 project.

SMARTER Finance for Families seeks to implement the ambitious but truly impactful Green Homes & Green Mortgages programmes in 12 European countries*. Lead by the RoGBC and comprising another 16 partners**, the project also receives expert inputs from Belgian, Danish and Italian entities. The existing programme includes over 50 projects, including 8.500 certified (or under signed agreement to certify) housing units representing more than 1.4 Billion Euros in project value.

As part of the SMARTER project, CRISCON has analysed the bi-directional matching of three existing rating systems with the current version of Level(s) and provided guidance to deploy an alignment strategy to the common framework in the twelve countries covered by the SMARTER’s implementing partners. Working together with RoGBC, whose rating system is the reference start in most countries, CRISCON has supported an immediate workstream to bolster the alignment of their rating, which was already incorporating full LCA with narrow cut-off rules and a very wide series of ambitious sustainability criteria.

It is also noteworthy that the SMARTER consortium partners joined the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance conversation through their involvement with the Energy Efficiency – Financial Institutions Group (EEFIG)

“Through the SMARTER project we need to achieve scale engaging, among others, institutional investors, large banking groups and local and national governments. Level(s) is an excellent tool that provides both an ability to run an ambitious, credible standard for green finance at the European level while allowing for flexibility to deliver the most appropriate approach through locally designed and administered certifications” explained Steven Borncamp, Project Director of SMARTER Finance for Families.

“We see Level(s) as an instrumental framework to tackle key challenges of the overall European construction sector”, added Sebastiano Cristoforetti, Managing Director at CRISCON and consortium partner in the SMARTER Project leading the Level(s) alignment. “We need to guide the EU green building market towards standardization: When it comes to building sustainability performance, it is time we speak the same language, regarding what we measure and how we measure it. These are important steps to ensure a climate-neutral Europe in 2050, with important progress already by 2030.”

The RoGBC, CRISCON and the whole SMARTER consortium look forward to the official Level(s) launch and continuing their collaboration with the programme.

*SMARTER project countries: Ireland, Poland, Czechia, Italy, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Slovakia

** The SMARTER consortium is composed by: the Romanian Green Building Council; Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (Denmark); Centre for Renewable Energy Resources and Saving (Greece); CRISCON (Italy); the Czech Green Building Council; the Energy Efficiency Centre - Georgia ; the Polish Green Building Council; the European-Ukrainian Energy Agency (EUEA);  People in Need (Czech Republic); Centre for Energy Efficiency EnEffect (Bulgaria); the Irish Green Building Council; Green Building Council Italia; TURKECO Construction and Energy (Turkey); Green Council (Bosnia and Herzegovina); the Slovak Green Building Council; Université Libre de Bruxelles -BATir (Belgium).

You can read the Green Homes, Green Mortgages brochure here.

For more information on the SMARTER Finance for Families project, please visit their webpage on the RoGBC website.