10 years with EEFIG – How it all began
Not all our members have been with us through all phases of EEFIG. So, we would like to use EEFIG’s 10th anniversary to look back to 2013 where it all began, and start a voyage all the way to the present and future activities.
From the first ground-breaking report to innovative tools, and the insights of ongoing and completed Working Groups, we highlight the impact our members have had on EEFIG’s work over the years. Keep reading to look back – and forward to the future of EEFIG.
Foundation of EEFIG – Phase 1 (2013-2015)
In November 2013 DG Energy and UNEP FI established a dialogue on how to break down the barriers for financial institutions to engage in long-term investments aiming at energy efficiency. There was a strong need for establishing a platform where public and private financial institutions, industry representatives, sector experts and policy makers could join forces to identify barriers, and work on concrete solutions to overcome them. The Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group ‘EEFIG’ was founded. This established a ground-breaking work platform enabling an open dialogue between a specialist expert group and the European Commission.
In 2015, EEFIG’s first big milestone was achieved with the publishing of the report “Energy Efficiency – the first fuel for the EU Economy”.
The takeaways from the report have been and still are a key source of inspiration for EU policy development within energy efficiency financing and were formative for phase 2 of EEFIG’s work.
Read more about the takeaways in the report
DEEP and underwriting guidance – Phase 2 (2016-2017)
In 2017, EEFIG launched two valuable tools that addressed specific barriers to scaling up energy efficiency financing as identified in the 2015 report:
- DEEP (De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform) is Europe’s largest open-source database for energy efficiency investments performance monitoring and benchmarking and provides improved understanding of the real risks and benefits of energy efficiency investments.
Read about DEEP
The EEFIG Underwriting Toolkit is designed to assist financial institutions to scale up their deployment of capital into energy efficiency and foster a common language between project developers, project owners and financial institutions.
Read about EEFIG underwriting toolkit
These and the broader EEFIG work have inspired dozens of Horizon2020 research and investment projects and became widely promoted in Member States through e.g., the Sustainable Energy Investment Forums.
Smart financing – Phase 3 (2018-2023)
From 2018 EEFIG started to organise its members in Working Groups to analyse key topics in energy efficiency investment and communicate conclusions and recommendations to Financial Institutions, Member States, the European Commission, and sector stakeholders. While 5 reports have already been published, we are expecting the remaining final reports to be available before EEFIG 3’s conclusion in June 2023.
During the next couple of months, we aim at highlighting the most relevant findings from the past 10 years, keep you updated on the latest news and give you a glimpse of what the future of EEFIG will look like.
EEFIG’s 10th anniversary calls for a new beginning - Stay tuned for more!