CECIMO joins the Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group

CECIMO has been invited by the European Commission to become a member of the Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (EEFIG). EEFIG was established as a permanent working group by the European Commission, in late 2013, as a result of the dialogue between the Directorate-General for Energy (DG Energy) and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI). These two institutions were already engaging with financial institutions to determine how to overcome the well documented challenges inherent to obtaining long-term financing for energy efficiency. The Group is tasked with investigating what can be done to trigger investments in energy efficiency measures, to overcome obstacles, and to provide recommendations to the public sector, the financial sector and end-users.  
The EEFIG released in April 2014 an interim report analyzing the drivers of new finance for energy efficiency (EE) investments in the buildings sector. The second part of the report will be focused on industrial energy efficiency and is expected to be published in January 2015. According to the European Commission, industry accounts for more than 25% of energy consumption in the EU. And despite significant progress made over the last decade (today industry consumes 19% less energy than it did in 2001), there is still untapped potential according to experts. The promotion of EE is recognized by the EU as a key factor for industrial competitiveness: it opens up new business opportunities, bringss input costs down and increases the security of supply. The EU proposed a new energy efficiency target of 30% for 2030 in its Energy Efficiency Communication, released on 23 July 2014.
The EEFIG brings together both the supply side of EE finance (public and private financial institutions: banks, investors, insurers; and energy service companies) and the demand side (industry) as well as energy efficiency experts, civil society experts, the European Commission and the UNEP- FI. The first two meeting were held on 25 June and 2 September 2014, in Brussels. Several workshops will be organized until the end of the year to discuss new financing models for industrial EE, more specifically for enabling the transfer of commercially viable technologies to industry. The EEFIG’s focus will be on mobilising private finance for EE and the effective use of public funds (such as EU structural funds) for supporting the uptake of private finance for industrial EE.
For more information, contact:
Gökalp Gümüsdere, European Policy Advisor - CECIMO
Tel +32 2 502 70 90 / Fax +32 2 502 60 82
gokalp.gumusdere (AT) cecimo.eu