From 2016 to 2018, the EmBuild project supported municipalities to develop local renovation strategies, focused on tackling their public buildings. The ultimate aim was to address the challenges of reducing energy and CO2 emissions, by driving the development and adoption of ambitious plans.

This report tells the story of the project. It mirrors the step-by-step approach used to support municipalities with their renovation strategies: planning (including gathering data to establish an inventory of the building stock and developing policies and measures), investing (identifying sources of financing) and capturing the benefits of renovation. This report presents selected examples of these steps and explains how tools developed by EmBuild have been used to support the development of renovation strategies. These examples can provide inspiration for other public authorities developing renovation strategies. Full details on the steps to undertake are set out in the template for renovation strategies developed for EmBuild. In addition, the experiences in Gorna Malina (Bulgaria) and Waltenhofen (Germany) are described in detail.

Renovating the buildings covered by the local renovation strategies supported by EmBuild will save around 8,900GWh of energy by 2050. By 2020 it is estimated that over 330 buildings will be renovated leading to over 500GWh of energy savings by 2020. Annex II provides a breakdown of the energy savings by country and municipality.

EmBuild is a coordination and support project implemented by a consortium of ten institutions based in eight countries throughout Europe under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Overall coordination rests with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The main objectives of EmBuild are to increase the capacity of public authorities at regional/municipal level to collect the necessary data to prepare ambitious, sustainable and realistic renovation strategies for public buildings; analyse and identify cost-e ective approaches to renovations; guide investment decisions; and facilitate private sector involvement. EmBuild is supporting municipalities and towns in Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. In addition, the project will focus on analysing policies and implemented measures that stimulate cost-e ffective deep renovation of buildings and identify best practices in six partner countries.