EIB and Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios join forces to boost energy efficiency projects in Spain and Portugal
NEWS FROM EUROPE
12.06.2020
Written by Eurac Research
A set of green investments have been put in place by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios (UCI) for the refurbishment of existing buildings and the construction of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB) in Iberia. UCI is a financial institution which aims to enable access to housing and also contributes to the renovation of building stock in order to develop more sustainable cities.
This project will allow to meet the region's climate and energy-saving targets. An estimation of around 25,000 m2 of new buildings will be constructed and 450,000 m2 of properties will be refurbished in Spain and Portugal. These actions are expected to contribute to 43.7 GWh of energy savings, while also creating more than a thousand of jobs.
This agreement will generate green financing of at least EUR 100 million in these two countries and will include mortgages, loans to private individuals and to homeowners’ associations. In order to implement this, the EIB will participate in the senior tranche of a residential mortgage backed security (“RMBS”) for an amount of EUR 100 million. This is the first project which considers the creation of energy efficiency loans that accomplish the requirements of the EIB and the Energy Efficiency Mortgage Action Plan (EeMAP).
In particular, UCI will offer four different product lines: green personal loans for renovating condominiums; green personal loans for refurbishing individual properties; green mortgage loans for newly built properties; and green mortgage loans for existing properties.
Although the difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these financial investments are still implemented in order to respond to the EIB´s long-term goal of energy transition and decarbonisation. Moreover, they represent a means to promote energy efficiency and sustainability across the homebuilding sector in Spain and Portugal to reach the 2030 targets. As Roberto Colomer, Chief Executive Officer of UCI stated, it is essential to foster green investments in buildings in order to overcome the economic and societal crisis left by COVID-19.
