The LIFE programme is divided into two strands: one for the environment and another for climate action.
The climate action strand also has two sub-programmes:
Climate change mitigation and adaptation
Clean energy transition
Projects are financed under these categories:
- Standard Action Projects (SAPs), traditional LIFE projects focused on best practices, demonstration, capacity building, deployment, mobilizing investment, and implementation of relevant EU policy.
Financing the energy retrofitting of buildings is a great challenge. With investments varying from 200 to 1,200 EUR/m2, access to attractive and long-term financing is perceived as the primary barrier for homeowners. Financial incentives such as grants, guarantees or soft loans for energy renovation could motivate homeowners to make the investment decision more easily.
Local and regional authorities in cooperation with financing institutions can offer to homeowners of private residential buildings:
Bond is a debt investment in which an investor loans money to an entity (typically corporate or governmental) which borrows the funds for a defined period of time at a variable or fixed interest rate. Bonds are issued by companies, municipalities, states and sovereign governments to raise money and finance their projects and activities. Green bonds are all those instruments which are used exclusively to fund qualifying green investments. They can be made attractive via tax-exemptions.
A crowd-funding platform pools resources of different actors, utilizing most of the time an internet-based platform. Crowdfunding for sustainable energy and climate projects is the natural extension of the citizen cooperative model to even larger communities. With the help of the internet, crowdfunding can draw support from people across entire countries and increasingly internationally.
Energy cooperatives refer to a business model where citizens jointly own and participate in renewable energy (RES) or energy efficiency (EE) projects. In energy cooperatives citizens are involved in both the decision making and financial & economical participation. All citizens are eligible to participate. After purchasing a cooperative share and becoming a member or co-owner of local RES and EE projects, members share in the profits and often are given the opportunity to buy the electricity at a fair price.
European Energy Efficiency Fund – Technical Assistance Facility (eeef - TA) supports projects in the sector of energy efficiency and partly small-scale renewable energy
The European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), with a budget of almost € 99.3 billion for the period 2021-2027, provides an important contribution to the EU’s employment, social, education and skills policies, including structural reforms in these areas.
The Fund is one of the cornerstones of recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and will help address challenges related to labour participation, education and health systems and increased inequalities.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) aims to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions. In 2021-2027 it will enable investments in a smarter, greener, more connected and more social Europe that is closer to its citizens.
The ERDF will enable investments to make Europe and its regions:
The Cohesion Fund provides support to Member States with a gross national income (GNI) per capita below 90% EU-27 average to strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the EU. The Cohesion Fund supports investments in the field of environment and trans-European networks in the area if transport infrastructure (TEN-T).
It is also possible to use the CF in the form of financial instruments.
