Publications
EUROCROWD supports crowdfunding for housing transition study with guidelines for implementation of a crowdfunding scheme for buildings retrofit
EUROCROWD is proud to support the crowdfunding for housing transition feasibility study of the CrowdHO project. The study includes guidelines for implementation of a crowdfunding scheme for buildings retrofit. Energy retrofit interventions in the context of social housing schemes can represent a major challenge in Europe, as critical priorities such as energy poverty, decarbonisation, and energy transition meet further financial obstacles such as bankability of interventions, fragmentation of home ownership and socio-economic frailty of households.
Main findings from the study highlight the relevance of crowdfunding in the social housing retrofit sector. In this context, crowdfunding can:
- Represent an injection of private resources and reduce relevant financial gaps
- Shift the financial burden of building retrofit from socially fragile people to the institutions and the community around them
- Small investors can benefit from tax incentives
- Reduce the concentration of risk for retail and institutional investors, when integrated with other banking instruments
Together with ART-ER, AESS Modena, Politecnico di Milano and Climate Media Factory, EUROCROWD and its members WeAreStarting and Civiesco have joined forces to explore the potential role of crowdfunding in the context of financing schemes that support deep retrofit interventions in the Emilia-Romagna context of social housing. The ex-ante feasibility study was developed within the framework of the EIT Climate-KIC funded project CrowdHO, with the aim of identifying potential solutions for the integration of crowdfunding with more traditional forms of financing (bank loans, third party financing), and unlock investments in the redevelopment of mixed-ownership social housing buildings.
In cooperation with a high-level expert group, EUROCROWD and CrowdHO partners have explored existing best practices that combine crowdfunding with energy efficiency investments in Europe, and developed two blueprints for the inclusion of equity and lending crowdfunding in existing social housing retrofit financing schemes. Future opportunities and current challenges as emerged from the analysis are presented in the CrowdHO ex-ante feasibility study.