Sustainability desire must not break down due to lack of time or knowledge

Expert blog - 15 December 2021

Joost Vlot is Investment Manager for Energiefonds Overijssel. His expertise is property sustainability. In this blog, he describes how he helps property owners fulfil their sustainability wishes.

Insulation, generation and recycling
Making real estate more sustainable is primarily about insulation. Because all the energy you don't use, you don't have to buy or generate. It is also about generating and reusing energy. There are many ways and technologies to save energy. Very innovative are heat recovery systems, which allow you to extract energy from air or water before it goes outside. By helping owners make their properties more sustainable, we are helping Energiefonds Overijssel achieve its energy transition objectives.

50 shades of green
Before this, I worked at ING bank. I mainly translated my passion for sustainability into my search for opportunities to make our house and neighbourhood more sustainable. I did and do this for 50 shades of green Assendorp, a foundation that aims to encourage, advise and guide residents of Zwolle's Assendorp neighbourhood to take sustainability measures. These come in many shapes and sizes. Think shared mobility, solar panels, façade gardens, floor insulation, waste separation et cetera. Hence the name '50 shades...'.

Combining work and passion
A job in impact investing allows me to combine my personal passion with my experience in the financial sector. This is how I ended up at StartGreen Capital. Here, I mainly deal with property sustainability for Energiefonds Overijssel. That mainly involves tackling existing buildings. For new construction, fortunately there are already many sustainability standards; although we can also provide financing for that.

Win-win model
A major challenge with sustainability, is that the owner is often not the user of the property. While the owner pays for the preservation and the user has the direct benefit. A housing corporation, for instance, usually has no direct interest in lower energy costs through sustainability, so why should they invest in it? Housing corporations often do want to keep rental costs manageable, which is a challenge with current energy prices. Now there is the possibility to ask tenants for a partial refund on an investment, such as a contribution to solar panels, but this is often not sufficient. Energiefonds Overijssel can provide opportunities that make sustainability entirely financially viable.

To do so, we use, among other things, an ESCO model: an Energy Service Company. The ESCO invests in the necessary sustainability measures, financed by Energiefonds Overijssel. We finance on a payback basis, so the owner himself only has to invest a limited amount: the investment is repaid from the reduction in energy costs. So we actually bring the benefits and costs of sustainability together in the ESCO. This gives the owner a sustainable building, the user a lower energy bill and together we take the energy transition a step further.

As few distractions as possible
When an owner has a sustainability wish, we help realise it with the least possible distraction from his core business. A school director wants, above all, teachers in front of the class. A hospital director wants to be able to deliver good care. They don't want to have to worry about the performance of the solar panels or the charging stations in the car park. Energiefonds Overijssel arranges the appropriate financing and also has a wide network of advisers and installers. These can help the property owners realise their sustainability wishes from A to Z.

De-care programme for housing associations
For housing associations, we are developing a special de-care programme. We will present this next year. We want to show that making real estate more sustainable can go hand in hand with lowering overall housing costs, without having to be a wealthy housing corporation. With this programme, we want to inspire directors of housing corporations to further improve sustainability, while helping their tenants reduce their energy bills.

Sustainability during renovation
Renovation is not a prerequisite, but it is a logical time for sustainability. In this video you can see how Twente Public Primary Education Foundation was able to make nine affiliated primary schools more sustainable with the help of Energiefonds Overijssel. This project is a good example of how we can make new buildings sustainable while also helping to make existing buildings thoroughly sustainable. When you consider that there are over 700 school buildings in Overijssel, in various sizes and ages, there are still many opportunities there.

Wish fulfilment
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to urge all property owners in Overijssel: do you have a sustainability wish? Let us know! It is such a shame if the desire for sustainability fails due to a lack of capacity or knowledge, while the capital and manpower are ready. We can think along and create a business model in many matters. We are working on a one-stop shop for real estate, but can already help in all areas to realise that desire.