SaveGarant is a method to make buildings more sustainable with a technical performance guarantee and financing from lower energy costs. You can apply to make your own premises more sustainable and use this method in your acquisition. The initiators and partners in Stichting BespaarGarant are: MKB-Nederland, VNO-NCW, Techniek Nederland, Bouwend Nederland and the NVDE.
The potential for energy savings in commercial and social real estate is great. To cash in on this potential, the government is setting increasingly stringent requirements. For example, an energy label C will be mandatory for offices by the end of 2023. It is estimated that approximately 55% of the total of some 64,000 offices do not yet meet this requirement. Bouwend Nederland, together with other sector organizations, has therefore developed SaveGarant. "Almost too good to be true," was Albert Adema's first reaction when he heard about it. Adema is co-owner of construction company De Vries in Leeuwarden, a member of the Executive Board of Bouwend Nederland and now also a board member of Stichting SaveGarant.
Unique way of financing
According to Adema, SaveGarant is intended to unburden building owners. "Owners regularly drop out after the consultation and the energy savings forecast. Financing the energy approach then turns out to be the bottleneck. With SaveGarant you finance from the savings on the energy bill. In effect, you pay a fee for energy savings as a service. This way, the energy approach has no impact on your liquidity and solvency and you retain the investment scope for your core activities. Eligible are companies and institutions that pay more than €1,500 energy costs per month for their building and want to save at least €500 per month. These are also great assignments for construction and installation companies."
Accreditation Training
For accreditation as a provider of SaveGarant, you will attend a training course. Using practical examples, you will go through the five steps of the method, including the tools and model contracts to be used. The online training takes 5 hours, spread over two 2.5-hour sessions. Adema advises companies active in the sustainability market to take the training. "This method helps to achieve good projects faster. Moreover, the multi-year performance contract ensures continuity. And you can prove with monitoring that the chosen approach actually improves the energy performance of the building."
Consultations
Stichting SaveGarant concludes two contracts for each project: one with the executing party (contractor/installer) and one with the client. Funding has been raised from the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and the National Green Fund, a total of €4.5 million. The first building owners have now come forward. Adema: "There are 24 consultations being held and there are currently five concrete SaveGarant projects in preparation. I assume that more will soon follow. My tip for construction companies: sign up for SaveGarant if your own commercial or office building does not yet have an energy label C and get this knowledge to use in your acquisition."
