Over the past decades, European standards have delivered great benefits for companies and consumers on the single market. In the light of the social and environmental ambitions of the new growth strategy – the EU Green Deal – and the twin transition, Europe’s competitiveness, technological sovereignty and ability to reduce dependencies will directly depend on how successful European actors are in standardisation at international level. The EU Standardization Strategy from 2022 calls for more flexible and focused approach to standardization processes which can respond to the fast pace of twin transition innovating. The Agile and Flexible Construction Materials Standardization for Boosting the Twin Transition (AFCOS) project aims to set up recommendations, for more agile standardization processes for construction materials based on pre-normative research performed horizontally in a collaborative fashion between key ecosystem players – research, standardization and industrial actors from four member states – Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Belgium. AFCOS will focus on identified standardization urgencies within the industrial ecosystem of construction and more specifically on standards supporting low carbon cement. Building on a set of activities combining research work with stakeholder engagement, educational activities and ambitious exploitation initiatives, AFCOS will produce roadmaps for pre-standardization, educational and training courses, strategy for education and skills development in the field of standardization of new building materials and exploitation models for the benefit of the European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), national standardization bodies, educational institutions and industry. AFCOS brings together 7 full and 5 associated partners from 9 EU countries encompassing research capacity, standardization expertise and industry representation and ecosystem actors, ensuring EU coverage and exploitability of the project results to a high level.

Many citizens, particularly in nascent green building markets, make suboptimal decisions in the design and construction choices for renovation approaches and new home purchases due to a fear of bank financing. Borrowing sufficiently to bring forward necessary resources to build homes properly both reduces citizens’ “Total Cost of Monthly Ownership” (loan payment plus energy, health and repair costs) while unlocking a critical increase of construction budgets facilitating ownership of the greenest, high-quality homes. Financing Green Homes with the borrower subject to lower monthly operating costs is less risky to banks which provide discounted credit without harming profits. The SMARTER project effectively communicates the benefits of Green Homes to citizens and other key stakeholders to bring a systemic solution to a systemic problem that inhibits the financial industry to design and offer green finance products and the citizens to understand and request them. SMARTER replicates a successful “Green Homes and Green Mortgage” program to 12 new countries, addresses barriers and brings green innovation with relevant research and cluster formation, adapts essential tools for administration and communication, and effectively expands collection of actual energy and financial performance to improve risk analysis with local data. Public investment is leveraged and ambitious green EU targets are supported as banks, developers, and green solution providers all contribute budgets to increase private financing for building exemplary homes. The SMARTER “Green Homes Investment Platform” guides new programs to a suitably ambitious, common definition of green investments and facilitates institutional investment by collaborating with ongoing initiatives including EeMAP and EEFIG; aligning with EC objectives such as “Mainstreaming Energy Efficiency Finance” and advancing the Financial, Technical and Behavioral de-risking championed by “Smart Finance for Smart Buildings".