EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for HORIZON-NEB-2025-01-BUSINESS-01 – “Renovating the Built Environment through Design for Adaptability & Disassembly”

1. Single Market Access (450+ million consumers)

• Pan-European demand for renovation: 85 % of EU buildings were built before 2000 and 75 % are energy-inefficient – a homogeneous, continent-wide retrofit market worth €275 bn/yr (EC, 2023).

• Modular product standardisation enabled by the grant can unlock rapid roll-out of adaptable components that fit diverse building typologies from Lisbon to Ljubljana, creating a truly EU-wide product catalogue.

• Public procurement leverage: 14 % of EU GDP is spent via public tenders. Demonstrated EU-level proofs of concept increase eligibility for Green Public Procurement (GPP) calls under the Renovation Wave and Cohesion Funds.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Mandatory multi-country pilots (min. two MS/AC) foster transnational consortia mixing northern circular-construction leaders (NL, DK, FI) with high-renovation-need regions (PL, RO, ES), accelerating market maturity across all climate zones.

• Shared digital twin libraries: Partners can co-develop BIM objects conforming to CEN/ISO standards, lowering design costs for future projects EU-wide.

• Mobility of experts: Marie-Skłodowska Curie, Erasmus+ and New European Bauhaus (NEB) Labs provide staff exchanges, embedding SSH experts and craftsmen in real sites.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies

• European Green Deal & Renovation Wave: Grant directly targets 35-million-building-renovation goal (by 2030) and correlates with EPBD recast obligations on whole-life-carbon reporting.

• Circular Economy Action Plan: Design for adaptability/disassembly operationalises new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) obligations.

• New European Bauhaus (NEB): Topic sits in NEB WP; feeding 0.2 % budget to NEB Hub ensures visibility in this high-level political initiative combining sustainability, inclusion and beauty.

• Digital Europe & Data Spaces: Level(s) indicators, digital material passports and Construction Data Space prototypes can be piloted, positioning the consortium for upcoming AI/data-governance tenders.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Unified technical standards (Eurocodes, CEN/TC 350, Level(s)) simplify the certification of modular components across 27 Member States, reducing time-to-market vs. navigating 27 separate regimes.

• Mutual recognition of construction products under the upcoming CPR revision accelerates CE-marking of reused elements.

• Lump-sum grant financing lowers administrative burden and offers predictable cash-flow across jurisdictions, benefiting SMEs.

5. Access to the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Living labs & lighthouse districts: Link with 100 Climate-Neutral & Smart Cities Mission, EIT Climate-KIC Deep Demonstrations and LIFE “Clean Energy Transition” projects for testbeds.

• Research excellence: Partners can tap 2,000+ Horizon Europe registered research organisations, Fraunhofer, TNO, CSTB, VTT, etc., to co-create life-cycle assessment (LCA) models and heritage-sensitive interventions.

• Investment platforms: Interaction with InvestEU’s Social Infrastructure Window and the EU City Facility for bundled finance of replication projects.

6. Funding Synergies & Leverage

| Instrument | How it complements this IA |

| --- | --- |

| ERDF & Cohesion Funds 2021-27 | Co-finance scaling of pilots in less-developed regions; align Smart Specialisation Strategies on circular construction. |

| LIFE Programme | Fund post-project replication focusing on nature-based retrofit elements (green roofs, biophilic façades). |

| CBE-JU (Circular Bio-based Europe) | Develop bio-based modular materials (mass-timber connectors, mycelium panels). |

| Innovation Fund | Large-scale industrial deployment of adaptive façade production lines with >€7.5 m CAPEX. |

| ELENA (EIB) | Project development assistance for city-wide roll-outs using results of this grant. |

7. Scale & Impact Potential

1. EU-wide deployment roadmap embedded in the proposal (mandatory exploitation section) can target:

• 10,000 m² of building stock/year converted via adaptive modules within 3 yrs post-project.

• 30 % material reuse rates vs. baseline in at least 5 Member States.

2. Policy uptake: Evidence packages delivered to DG ENER, DG GROW and national ministries feed into secondary legislation for EPBD and CPR, influencing future market rules.

3. Socio-economic dividends: Job creation in deconstruction, remanufacturing and heritage-sensitive design; measurable contributions to EU goal of 160,000 additional green jobs by 2030 (Renovation Wave).

8. Actionable Opportunities for Applicants

• Build consortia that include:

– Product manufacturers aiming for EU-wide CE marking of modular kits.

– Municipalities from cohesion regions eager for lighthouse status (higher replication funding probability).

– FinTech or social-finance actors to prototype pay-for-performance renovation contracts.

• Leverage European Construction Sector Observatory datasets to quantify market barriers and tailor business cases.

• Integrate Level(s) indicators 2.2 & 4.1 for carbon/circularity; this anticipates forthcoming mandatory reporting, giving partners first-mover advantage.

• Align IP strategy with Knowledge Sharing Clause: foreground open-source digital building logbooks while patenting unique connectors – balancing EU-wide knowledge diffusion and commercial edge.

9. Strategic EU-Scale Value Proposition

By operating transnationally, projects can:

• Achieve critical mass of secondary materials, enabling reverse-logistics economies of scale impossible at national level.

• Influence standard-setting bodies (CEN, ISO) through coordinated evidence, speeding harmonised rules that open the entire Single Market.

• Access pan-European talent pools (designers, SSH experts, craft schools) nurturing culturally sensitive, inclusive renovation blueprints aligned with NEB aesthetics.

• Unlock portfolio financing: aggregating €50-100 m pipelines across countries meets institutional investors’ ticket-size expectations, attracting green bonds and Article 9 funds under SFDR.

10. Key Take-Away

HORIZON-NEB-2025-01-BUSINESS-01 is more than an R&D grant; it is a springboard to shape an EU-wide circular-renovation market. Consortia that smartly exploit Single Market access, cross-border pilots, EU policy momentum and multi-fund leverage can transform pilot sites into scalable, investment-ready solutions – delivering sustainability, inclusiveness and economic growth across Europe.