The objective of this review is to find evidence on international best practice on financing models for energy efficiency investments in buildings. For this reason preference is given to potentially least biased, highest quality, recent and relevant reviews of evidence from developed countries in similar climate zones to Australia.

For this review, a finance mechanism is considered distinct from government grants and subsidies, energy efficiency white certificate schemes and other targeted policy instruments that have been used to incentivise the uptake of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures for buildings. However, consideration of such programs and schemes may be relevant for evaluating the appropriateness of any given finance mechanism, and the topic is part of a number of the included studies.