The Trust EPC South project, co-funded by the European Commission, aims to raise awareness of and scale up investments in energy efficiency (EE) and sustainable energy (SE) technologies in the tertiary sector. The focus of the project is to unlock the significant potential for EE and SE investments in private buildings.

The Trust EPC South consortium is focused on and composed of partner organisations covering southern Europe, including Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Project partners seek to engage financial institutions, real estate companies, and tertiary building owners to test a rating approach intended to streamline energy investment by standardising building energy performance assessment, and allowing for independent verification of EE and SE measures.

Building on the Green Rating methodology developed by Bureau Veritas, Trust EPC developed the Green Rating for Energy Performance Contracts (GREPCon) tool. GREPCon allows users to assess and benchmark the intrinsic energy performance of the building, given its design and equipment, and the operational performance of the building, which is determined by operations, maintenance activities as well as occupant behaviours. Users can assess the actual intrinsic and operational performance relative to potential intrinsic and operational performance with energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements. Users can then identify the highest-impact measures along with anticipated financial returns. Forty-six energy efficiency and renewable energy measures are included for tertiary buildings, which can be independently verified.

The main objectives of Trust EPC South can be summarised as:

• Promoting dialogue and synergies between the EPC offer side, the tertiary sector demand side and the financing side.
• Developing, in strict cooperation with financing institutions and certification bodies, a robust investment assessment and benchmarking tool based on the existing Green Rating™ methodology and tools.
• Providing training on financing solutions and EPC basics for financing institutions, investor groups, certification bodies, the energy efficiency services sector, tertiary sector actors, public authorities and policy makers.

Real estate companies, financial institutions and other interested parties are encouraged to contact info@trustepc.eu for further information.