Energy Efficient Mortgages Going Global

Brussels, 8 February 2018 – For immediate release

Today, the Energy Efficient Mortgages Initiative is being presented at a Roundtable on Sustainable Finance & Energy Efficiency in Singapore in collaboration with the National University of Singapore’s School of Design and Environment. Attended by Singaporean, European and Asian representatives from a wide range of sectors, the Roundtable is a strong sign of the growing global interest in energy efficiency financing.

Today’s roundtable is a standout event in a series of global meetings of the covered bond community in Singapore with issuers and investors from all over the globe in attendance to promote the Capital Markets Union to Asian investors. It therefore provides a perfect opportunity to bring together relevant stakeholders to discuss the state of play of energy efficiency and its financing across the two continents and exchange information and best practice on the ways in which financial actors can play a leading role in this market. In this context, the Energy Efficient Mortgage Initiative will be showcased as an example of how the mortgage sector can take the lead in scaling-up private investment in building energy performance.

Singapore is also a perfect location for the fourth in a series of Energy Efficient Mortgage Initiative Roundtables, since Singapore has declared 2018 as a Year of Climate Action following the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23) and has pledged to reduce its carbon emission, with energy efficiency being one of the key components identified to reach the targets.

Luca Bertalot, EeMAP Coordinator & EMF-ECBC Secretary General, said: “The interest expressed by the Singapore community in organising and participating in this Roundtable is a testament to the fact that the Energy Efficient Mortgages Initiative is going global. We’re excited about the opportunity to present the Initiative to a global audience and describe European efforts to support the transition to a low-carbon, more resource-efficient and sustainable economy by way of the Capital Markets Union and a specific focus on sustainable finance.”

Notes to Editors

The final Energy Efficient Mortgage framework will be formally presented on 14 June 2018 at an Energy Efficient Mortgages Stakeholder Event in Windsor, UK. This event will also mark the official start of the EeMAP Pilot Phase.

The Energy Efficient Mortgages Initiative consists of two EU funded projects:

1. The EeMAP Initiative – led by the European Mortgage Federation-European Covered Bond Council, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,RICS, the Europe Regional Network of the World Green Building Council, ON and SAFE Goethe University Frankfurt aims to create an energy efficient mortgage through which homebuyers are incentivised to improve the energy efficiency of their building or acquire an already energy efficient property by way of favourable conditions liked to the mortgage. The cornerstone of the initiative is the assumption that energy efficiency has a risk mitigation effect for banks as a result of the impact on a borrower’s ability to service his/her loan and on the value of the property, a correlation which the EeMAP Initiative will seek to substantiate.
2. The Energy efficient Data Portal & Protocol Initiative (EeDaPP) will support the EeMAP Pilot Phase by designing a market-led protocol, which will facilitate the large-scale gathering and processing of data relating to energy efficient mortgage assets (loan-by-loan), via a standardised reporting template. In the long term, the data will be accessed by way of a common, centralised portal, allowing for continuous tracking of the performance of the energy efficient mortgage assets, thereby also facilitating the tagging of such assets for the purposes of energy efficient bond issuance. The EeDaPP Initiative is led by the European Mortgage Federation-European Covered Bond Council, European DataWarehouse, CRIF, Hypoport, TXS, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and SAFE Goethe University Frankfurt.