The Essentials
The European Commission and the European Investment Bank have announced a boost for energy efficiency in European small and medium-sized enterprises: more than 350,000 companies are expected to benefit from an initiative mobilising €17.5 billion in financing dedicated to efficiency and decarbonisation in the period 2025–2027. The aim is pragmatic: to support the adoption of proven energy-saving technologies, reduce bills and strengthen resilience and competitiveness. For building owners and managers — many of whom are SMEs — this means a real window of opportunity to invest in modernising operations, gaining control over costs and preparing assets for a market where efficiency is no longer an “option” but a condition for competitiveness. The initiative was presented in Brussels, sending a clear political signal of the priority given to business efficiency across the Union.
Technical priority
The programme’s design is explicit in prioritising solutions that deliver verifiable results. It talks about supporting companies in using efficiency technologies that have already proven to reduce consumption and costs and that can be quickly integrated into the daily operations of service buildings: more efficient air conditioning, optimised lighting, more rigorous energy management, among other approaches aligned with rationalising consumption. For managers, the message is clear: the first frontier of value lies in operationalising efficiency — knowing where consumption occurs, how much is consumed, and what measures reduce what. With this framework, technical preparation is no longer an add-on but becomes the very core of the investment: projects with clear and monitorable performance metrics will be better positioned to attract funding and deliver tangible OPEX savings immediately after implementation.
How support works
The EIB is committing €17.5 billion to almost double its support in this area between 2025 and 2027, combining debt and equity instruments and working with the bank’s network of financial intermediaries to reach SMEs in all Member States. The ambition is to mobilise more than €65 billion in total investment by 2027, closing a market gap that has been holding back the scale of efficiency projects in businesses. To simplify access, a one-stop shop for SME efficiency is being created – a single point of entry that aggregates the EIB’s offering in this field, shortening the path between technical need and financial solution. The package is reinforced with InvestEU guarantees and programme support LIFE (clean energy transition), and also includes the launch of a working group dedicated to SMEs within the European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition, specifically to tackle financing barriers and align instruments with real needs on the ground. For building managers, this translates into a more direct route: preparing a solid technical dossier and pursuing a more predictable financing channel.
€17.5 billion for 350,000 businesses and their buildings.
Opportunities for building portfolios
The initiative includes support for dedicated investment platforms in partnership with the private sector, targeting efficiency projects in SMEs. In practice, this model helps to broaden the investor base and attract additional capital for a pipeline of large-scale interventions — something particularly relevant for portfolios with multiple buildings, where standardisation of measures and metrics speeds up approvals. The EIB Group is also involved in initiatives that promote servitisation models (energy efficiency as a service): instead of purchasing equipment, companies pay for performance (e.g. thermal comfort or efficient lighting), which can reduce barriers to entry and align incentives between investors, suppliers and end users. At the same time, the institutions emphasise that SMEs invest in efficiency at half the rate of large companies; therefore, simplifying access and combining instruments aims to unlock decision-making and speed up implementation. The message to building owners and managers is clear: getting there first, with ready and measurable projects, increases the likelihood of gaining support.
What to do now
Between 2025 and 2027, time is of the essence. The shortest route involves three steps: (1) internally organising the technical pipeline with proven efficiency measures and estimated savings metrics; (2) prepare a financial profile that fits the programme’s instruments (debt, equity, or performance-based service models); and (3) activate contact with financial intermediaries linked to the EIB Group through the one-stop-shop, coordinating implementation deadlines and monitoring requirements from the outset. The competitive advantage will lie in dossiers showing baseline, targets, timelines and verification of results. For building owners and managers, this presents a concrete opportunity to transform operations: reduce consumption, lower risk in the face of energy volatility, and reposition assets with better technical and economic performance — with institutional support that has been explicitly calibrated to scale efficiency in SMEs.
References
- European Investment Bank – More than 350,000 European companies to get energy efficiency support under major EU financing initiative (11-09-2025): https://www.eib.org/en/press/all/2025-331-more-than-350000-european-companies-to-get-energy-efficiency-support-under-major-eu-financing-initiative
WiseBuilding® has the technical expertise to implement any project that creates buildings that think, save and protect the planet, and to assist you in the process of clarifying the support available. Please contact us for further information.
WISEFRAMEWORK is a BACnet B-AWS certified software solution for state-of-the-art integration, control, management and visualisation in building automation systems. Designed to redefine the way buildings are operated through an open platform and seamless harmonisation between building-generated data by supporting multiple protocols including BACnet, Modbus, KNX, OPC-UA and MQTT. Through the use of Haystack technology, the software also empowers the building for the future at the forefront in the integration of the various technical systems.
