Help is at hand for European financial institutions scrambling to train staff in sustainable housing finance as regulatory pressure intensifies and customer demand for green mortgages accelerates across the continent.

The Smarter Finance for EU consortium, which is aiming to unlock €100bn worth of green homes across Europe, announced the launch of a European centre of excellence to promote green home certification and investment across Europe at the Irish Green Building Council’s annual residential conference in Dublin.

While tokenistic or poorly conceived attempts at supporting the decarbonisation and greening of buildings still abound in the finance sector, there are signs of structural changes on the horizon - changes designed to unlock widespread change. But do those changes go far enough?

Europe’s burgeoning green homes market is a multi-trillion euros opportunity – but lenders must be wary of facilitating greenwashing, a pan-European consortium has warned.

Green home certifications and mortgage products must align with new EU rules on green finance, the pan-European Smarter Finance for EU consortium has warned.

A new European project focussed on accelerating the roll-out of certified green homes – including the development of green mortgages, loans and development finance – has been launched.