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  1. An institution, body, office or agency established by or based on the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities.

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    A microenterprise, a small or medium-sized enterprise (business) as defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. To qualify as an SME for EU funding, an enterprise must meet certain conditions, including (a) fewer than 250 employees and (b) an annual turnover not exceeding EUR 50 million and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 43 million. These ceilings apply only to the figures for individual companies.

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  1. Governance, partnership: Projects aimed at increasing the application of multilevel and transnational or cross-border governance, designing and testing appropriate governance structures and mechanisms. Also cooperation between public institutions on any theme.

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    Activities focussing on agricultural products, organic farming, horticulture, as well as forest management and wood products; furthermore the development of the food sector, food chains, organic food production, and seafood products and any topics related to animals and fishing.

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    Soil and air quality: Projects that deal with any topic against soil and air pollution, except water pollution, for example, reduction of soil and air contamination, pollution-management systems, but also prevention and eradication of soil erosion, new ways of improving air quality (also indoors) and soil/air knowledge in general.

    Climate change and biodiversity projects assisting mitigation and adaption to climate change and environmental impacts of climate change. Development of low carbon technologies and strategies, reduction of CO2 emissions from all sectors. Promotion of biodiversity, new instruments to enhance biodiversity and natural protection.

    Soil and air quality projects that deal with any topic against soil and air pollution, except water pollution, for example, reduction of soil and air contamination, pollution-management systems, but also prevention and eradication of soil erosion, new ways of improving air quality (also indoors) and soil/air knowledge in general.

    Water management projects about management and distribution of drinking water, integrated sustainable water management, monitoring systems for water supply and improving drinking water quality; also water treatment (wastewater), in particular, innovative technologies to improve wastewater, treatments in the purification of industrial and domestic wastewater and water reuse policies. Waterways, lakes and rivers: This deals with any topics on waterways, lakes and rivers, from improving water quality, protecting and developing of ecosystems or sustainable wetland management.

    Activities that protect, promote and enhance cultural and natural heritage, increase the attractiveness through preservation and valorisation of common cultural and natural heritage in a sustainable manner, and improve and develop cultural and natural heritage objects, services and products. Cultural heritage management, art and culture, (maritime) heritage routes, access to cultural and natural heritage. Also all topics on cultural services such as festivals, concerts, art workshops.

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    This is about the mitigation and management of risks and disasters, and the anticipation and response capacity towards the actors regarding specific risks and management of natural disasters, for example, prevention of flood and drought hazards, forest fire, strong weather conditions, etc.. It is also about risk assessment and safety.

    Education and training projects on expanding educational opportunities, reducing barriers in the field of education, improving higher education and lifelong learning, training and labour mobility, educational networks, higher vocational education, common learning programmes.

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    This deals with the development of health and social services and improved accessibility and efficiency for different groups (elderly, children, etc.). It is also about new healthcare models and medical diagnosis and treatments (dementia, cancer, diabetes, etc.), hospitals, care management, and rare diseases, as well as improving wellbeing and promoting sports.

    Projects about (organised) crime, efficient and secure borders, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the police in the prevention of drug crimes, the development of safety services, or tackling security and organised crime issues.

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    • Multimodal transport and logistics and freight transport focusing on using different means of transport, developing multimodal connections, optimising intermodal transport chains; offering multimodal logistics solutions and providing access to clean, efficient and multimodal transport corridors and hubs; establishing cooperation among logistic centres and developing multimodal mobility strategies.

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    • regional planning and development, such as the implementation of regional development policies/instruments and programmes, sustainable land use management plans, integrated regional action plans, spatial planning, and marine protected area management.
    • rural and peripheral development, referring to remote, sparsely populated areas, rural community development, and rural economics, in particular access to remote areas and policies for rural areas.
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Call key data

Mainstreaming sustainable energy investments in the financial sector

Funding Program

LIFE - sub-programme “Clean Energy Transition”

Call number

LIFE-2022-CET-MAINSTREAM

deadlines

Opening
17.05.2022

Deadline
16.11.2022 17:00

Funding rate

95 %

Call budget

€ 3,500,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

The topic aims to make investments in energy efficiency and small-scale renewable energy sources more attractive to private investors.

Call objectives

Significant investments need to be mobilised to achieve the ambition set by the European Green Deal and the objective to reduce EU dependence on fossil fuels imports set out in the REPowerEU plan. While significant public sector expenditure is allocated to leverage private finance for sustainable energy (e.g. through the InvestEU facility), many private investors still lack sufficient incentives and tools to overcome the perceived complexity and risks associated with this kind of projects. Sustainable energy investments, understood in this topic as investments in energy efficiency and small-scale renewable energy sources, need further de-risking and mainstreaming into the strategic and operational approaches of market actors, in particular private financial institutions.

The EU’s sustainable finance strategy aims to embed sustainability into investment processes. A proper implementation of the associated policies, in particular the EU taxonomy regulation, the proposal for a Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the Banking Package 2021, the EU green bond standard and labels for retail investment products, requires market actors to change their practices. Sustainable energy interventions are often part of a broader investment, hence they are not always identified as sustainable assets, which reduces their visibility for investors.

In this context, adequate tools and methodologies are needed to attract private finance to sustainable energy investments, in particular in the energy efficiency segment. Some of these exist already and need to be fine-tuned and expanded. There is also a need to encourage investment alignment with and overachievement of the regulatory requirements and policies on sustainable finance, both on the supply and demand side of finance. Such alignment could in turn foster a massive upscale of retail investment in sustainable energy and via securitisation of sustainable energy assets access to the secondary market.

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Expected effects and impacts

Proposals should address one or several of the following areas of work, with a focus on sustainable energy investments (i.e. energy efficiency and/or small-scale renewables):

  • Improving risk and sustainability assessment in the methods and tools of private investors by integrating the specificities of sustainable energy, including multiple benefits of energy efficiency. The focus can be at project level (e.g. creditworthiness analysis, quality standards, benchmarking data) or at portfolio level (e.g. internal ratings-based approaches, climate stress-testing, analysis of sustainable energy aspects of investment strategies, etc.).
  • Labelling and certification schemes including methodologies and tools for benchmarking, tagging, monitoring of investment performance, and disclosure of investment data with a link to the EU sustainable finance legislation.
  • Improving availability and interoperability for financial institutions of data collected e.g. from energy performance certificates, energy audits, smart meters, as well as energy and financial performance data of investment, connected wherever possible to the De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform (DEEP)[8].
  • Development, evolution and/or distribution of financial products, including insurance, supporting the securitisation of sustainable energy assets with a particular focus on energy efficiency.
  • Targeted support to sustainable energy finance related activities of regulatory bodies and supervisory authorities, in particular related to revised risk ratings and requirements for energy efficient assets.
  • Accelerating implementation or overachievement of EU sustainable finance requirements and policies by private investors and/or companies, including support to project developers in order to better meet expectations of private investors (e.g. development of closer connections between technical standards and accounting and disclosure reporting).
  • Develop standards to increase the volume of energy efficiency and sustainable energy investments in financial institutions assets and lending portfolio, in line with the EU’s sustainable finance strategy and the EU Taxonomy Regulation.
  • Capacity building at all levels of the private finance value chain, in the form of exchanges of best practices, development of training programmes and/or evolution and/or rollout of existing training programmes.

The proposed actions should credibly engage with the relevant stakeholders in the private finance value chain, including institutional investors, but also retail banking branches, brokers, fund managers, investment advisers, insurers, etc., in order to ensure adoption of the results by market players. Proposals should demonstrate support of the targeted stakeholder groups and how they will be involved throughout the project.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 1.5 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

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Expected results

Proposals should result, depending on the scope of the activities, in enhanced capacity and appetite of private financial institutions to invest in energy efficiency and small-scale renewable energy sources; adoption of new approaches, tools, labels and certification schemes; enhanced access to data related to financial and energy performance; evolutions in the regulatory and supervisory frameworks; easier identification of the alignment of sustainable energy investments to the criteria of the EU taxonomy of sustainable activities.

Proposals should quantify their impacts using the indicators listed below, where relevant, as well as other project-specific performance indicators:

  • Number of private finance stakeholders integrating the results of the project and related investment portfolios.
  • Number of private finance stakeholders benefitting from enhanced capacity.
  • Number of financial regulatory bodies and supervisory authorities benefitting from support on sustainable energy policies.
  • Investments in sustainable energy triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).
  • Primary energy savings triggered by the project (in GWh/year).
  • Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year).

 

The impacts of the proposals should be demonstrated during the project and within 5 years after the project lifetime.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Albania (Shqipëria), Andorra, Faeroes (Føroyar / Færøerne), Iceland (Ísland), Israel (ישראל / إِسْرَائِيل), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна)

eligible entities

Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Mandatory partnership

Yes

Project Partnership

Proposals must be submitted by at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

  • be legal entities (public or private bodies)
  • be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • non-EU countries:
      • please see the List of Participating Countries in LIFE for an up-to-date list of countries with which the association agreements have started to produce legal effects (either through provisional application or their entry into force).
  • the coordinator must be established in an eligible country

Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).

International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.

Additional information

Topics

Administration & Governance, Institutional Capacity & Cooperation, 
Air Quality, Biodiversity & Environment, Climate & Climate Change, Water quality & management, 
Circular Economy, Natural Resources, 
Demographic Change, European Citizenship, Migration, 
Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)

Additional Information

Proposal page limits and layout:

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

  • Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants and the summarised budget for the project
  • Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project
  • Part C containing additional project data
  • mandatory annexes and supporting documents:
    • detailed budget table
    • participant information
  • optional annexes: letters of support

Page limit - Part B: 65 pages

Call documents

Call document LIFE-2022-CETCall document LIFE-2022-CET(1043kB)

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