Public funding by the European Union Structural and Cohesion Funds are available but have to be channelled successfully through national and regional programmes to speed up energy efficiency investments in residential and public buildings. Additional private finance contributions should be increased to achieve the needed investments, same as innovative instruments, such as green bonds and on-bill schemes. New schemes offer the chance to mobilise additional private resources and improve the needed cooperation between homeowners, utilities and institutional investors.

The guidance, available in English, Romanian and Bulgarian, was developed under the framework of the project ‘Our Buildings‘, supported by the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The project aims at developing capacity and transferring knowledge to enable municipalities and civil society to integrate building renovation strategies in local and National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) in Romania and Bulgaria.