EDF’s Investor Confidence Project Wins Prestigious Finance for Resilience Award

(NEW YORK – April 6, 2016) Environmental Defense Fund’s Investor Confidence Project (ICP) received the prestigious Finance for Resilience (FiRe) award yesterday at The Future of Energy Summit hosted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Over one thousand investors and energy experts voted for innovative ideas that have the potential to accelerate financing for clean energy globally.

“EDF’s Investor Confidence Project is an innovative and actionable intervention that will bring needed investment in energy efficiency to buildings in cities around the world,” said Dr. Barbara Buchner, Executive Director of Climate Policy Initiative, the FiRe secretariat. “By winning FiRe, the Investor Confidence Project has demonstrated its credibility with investors. We are looking forward to supporting EDF taking this intervention to scale, and expanding into emerging markets.”

The theme for this year’s prize was driving investment in clean energy, prompted by a concern that investment to limit carbon pollution currently falls short of what is needed to address climate change. The Investor Confidence Project tackles this issue by bringing rigorous measurement and verification metrics to energy efficiency building retrofits, standardizing the way such projects are developed and brought to market — and making them more attractive to investors and building owners alike.

“Imagine if we could transform cities around the world with clean, efficient buildings, unlock billions of dollars of investment, and help turn the corner on climate change,” said Andy Darrell, Environmental Defense Fund’s Chief of Strategy, Global Energy & Finance, who presented at the Summit. “The Investor Confidence Project’s approach can be adapted to any city or real estate portfolio. Being part of the FiRe community is a tremendous opportunity to introduce ICP to a global audience that can help take energy efficiency to market on a mass scale.”

Improving building efficiency is key to a clean energy future because buildings make up nearly 40 percent of global energy consumption — and can waste up to half of it. ICP was one of eight finalists chosen from a pool of over 40 proposals, and one of four FiRe winners resulting from a competitive pitch process.

So far, ICP programs are operational in the U.S. and in Europe, including a pilot through the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) and as a standard for property-assessed clean energy loans (PACE) in Texas. ICP Europe received a grant from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme, and recently launched a set of protocols to define European best practices for predicting energy savings, optimizing performance, and monitoring the results of energy efficiency investments.