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:
On-bill lending is a method of financing energy efficiency improvements that uses the utility bill as the repayment vehicle. Energy suppliers collect the repayment of a loan through energy bills. It leverages the relationship, which exists between a utility and its customer in order to facilitate access to funding for sustainable energy investments.
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.
Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) is a form of creative financing for capital improvement which allows funding energy upgrades from cost reductions. Under an EPC arrangement, an external organisation (Energy Service Company - ESCO) implements a project to deliver energy efficiency, or a renewable energy project, and uses the stream of income from the cost savings or the renewable energy produced to repay the costs of the project (including the costs of the investment). Essentially, the ESCO will not receive its payment unless the project delivers energy savings as expected.
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.
The Public Loan Facility complements the two other pillars of the Just Transition Mechanism, the Just Transition Fund (JTF) and a dedicated just transition scheme under InvestEU. It helps to address the socio-economic challenges of the transition to climate neutrality in the most affected territories as identified in the territorial Just Transition Plans.
The InvestEU Fund is a market-based and demand-driven instrument, with a strong emphasis on EU policy priorities. It supports the following 4 Policy Windows:
• Sustainable infrastructure
Financing projects in sustainable energy, digital connectivity, transport, the circular economy, water, waste, other environment infrastructure and more.
• Research, innovation and digitalisation
The Technical Assistance Projects (TA projects) may include the following:
1. Projects for the preparation of SNAPs or SIPs (TA-PP).
These projects are aimed at providing financial support to help applicants to prepare a SNAP or a SIP for a maximum LIFE contribution of EUR 70 000. They represent the continuation of the technical assistance projects financed under the LIFE programme 2014-2020.
