French roundtables for scaling up investment in energy efficiency and integrated renewables in the Building Sector

Introduction

Efficient, decarbonised energy use is key to achieving a low-carbon European Union (EU). Buildings represent the highest energy saving potential in the EU and show strong prospects for renewable energy production. France has the second largest floor area in the EU. Investing in renovations and renewables in the French building sector is therefore key to achieving the EU's climate and energy targets.

Financial Benefits and Current Challenges

Scaling up investments in renovations and renewables in the building sector is financially beneficial, in the long-term, to almost all stakeholders in this field. However, to date, such investments are strongly insufficient.

This lack of financing can be approached as a use case of the tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968), in which the pursuit of self-interests in the short-term is detrimental to the long-term interests of each stakeholder. The most efficient fix to such an issue is to complement market coordination with more explicit coordination. This is the overarching objective of the FR-BS project.

Stakeholder Cooperation

The FR-BS project will foster cooperation among all stakeholders, such as:

• Private construction actors
• Financiers
• Public actors
• Citizens owning homes

A dialogue will take place within roundtables aimed at building a common understanding across stakeholders.

Co-Designing Solutions

Roundtable stakeholders will co-design turnkey propositions to alleviate barriers to scaling up investments in renovations and renewables in the building sector. Because public money is falling short of the investments required, such investments must come mostly from the private sector.

Innovative Methodology

We propose an innovative methodology to achieve these goals. The project will start with building a strong understanding of the private interests of all stakeholders.

It will enable stakeholders to identify areas of convergence between them, which will foster the co-design of a strategy to scale up investments that satisfies, as much as possible, their interests. This method is a guarantee of the relevance and applicability of the strategy.