Green homes key to climate and housing crises and rebuilding Ukraine

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The housing crisis, climate emergency and a raft of other crises including the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine can be tackled simultaneously – by a pan-European green homes investment driven, the consortium has said.

“The world is facing a number of environmental and social crises, including climate change, biodiversity collapse, and the need to provide safe, healthy, affordable homes for all. Green homes can help to tackle all of these problems and more – and deliver warm, healthy, affordable homes for families all around Europe,” consortium spokesperson Elena Rastei told delegates at the Smarter4EU Better Homes conference, held in Dublin in November 2024.

The EU-Life funded project is aiming to help standardise and align green home programmes across Europe with requirements affecting the finance world to support with the implementation of the European Green Deal.

The consortium includes partners with established green home programmes in Ireland, Romania and Spain, and new programmes in Portugal and Ukraine – all of which are being aligned with new rules for green investment, via the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities.

Rebuilding Ukraine

The day before the conference, the consortium brought a delegation of mayors and municipal leaders from Ukraine and Portugal to visit a Clúid affordable housing scheme in Cabra certified to the Home Performance Index, the Irish Green Building Council’s sustainable home rating system.

“Green homes should not be seen as a luxury – even in a post-war setting,” said Smarter4EU energy poverty lead Iva Merheim-Eyre. “Green housing can be economically viable even in affordable housing sectors with a good blend of public and private investments”. Julie Emmrich, sustainable finance lead for the World Green Building Council, emphasised the need to include green renovations of Europe’s existing housing stock.

“The EU taxonomy currently doesn’t sufficiently incentivise investments in green retrofits in residential homes,” she said. “The Smarter Finance for EU project aims to fill that gap.”

The Better Homes conference included a roundtable discussion on overcoming challenges to delivering green, healthy and affordable housing for all, including municipalities and financial agencies from Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Ukraine.

A panel session on ‘hybrid’ finance solutions discussed different types of hybrid funding, which include blends of private and public funding, to help deliver green homes for the social and affordable housing sectors across Europe. The panel, moderated by Passive House Plus editor Jeff Colley, discussed ways to strengthen cooperation between municipalities, financial agencies and private developers, and opportunities to access affordable housing. According to Merheim-Eyre, hybrid finance will have a particularly key role to play in unlocking green home investment across Europe, including Ukraine.

“Given the scale of the reconstruction challenge in Ukraine, hybrid finance will be required, at a time when investors are under increasing pressure to green their investment portfolios,” she said.

As of November 2024, Smarter Finance for EU has unlocked finance and green home certification for over 37,000 new homes across Europe.