Energy efficiency is a triple win: for our climate, competitiveness, and security. Without improvements in energy efficiency over the last 20 years, the EU’s energy consumption today would have been about 27% higher.
Despite the undeniable advantages of energy efficiency and the progress achieved to date, several challenges persist, hindering progress towards the 2030 energy efficiency targets.
Energy efficiency roadmap – 1 year on
Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, reaffirmed a renewed commitment to energy efficiency at the IEA Global Energy Efficiency Conference in Brussels on 13 June 2025.
One year after its launch, the Energy efficiency roadmap continues to support efforts across its 10 areas of work, focusing on simplifying implementation of energy efficiency rules, mainstreaming energy efficiency in EU energy policy making and investment mobilisation.
10 energy efficiency areas
1. Support and simplify implementation
The Commission will streamline the implementation of EU energy efficiency rules in the coming years, including the Energy Efficiency Directive, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and Ecodesign and Energy Labelling. It will support EU countries with guidance, task forces, concerted action and simplification tools to ensure effective and aligned implementation.
2. Mainstream energy efficiency in EU energy policymaking
The Commission will continue to integrate energy efficiency into broader EU energy strategies, such as the Grids Package, the Electrification Action Plan and the Heating and Cooling Strategy, to ensure its consistent and systemic application across sectors.
3. Strengthen sector-specific policies and product standards
This includes raising standards for buildings, products, data centres and heating and cooling, by updating regulations, tackling barriers and promoting high-efficiency solutions.
4. Facilitate financing and investment
The Commission continues to mobilise public and private capital with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB). This is achieved through coalitions, national hubs, investment platforms, and the development of new investment tools designed to scale up energy efficiency, such as
- the Energy Efficiency in SMEs initiative, launched in November 2025
- the Clean Energy Investment Strategy, launched in March 2026
The European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition is also exploring new market approaches, including
- demand activation and tailored services designed for SMEs
- innovative business models for energy efficiency service providers to better reach target groups
5. Enhance collaboration and cooperation
Starting with the Energy Efficiency Day on 20 May 2025, the Commission pursues structured dialogue and agreements between governments, industry and finance actors to jointly accelerate energy efficiency implementation.
The Efficiency Action Forum 2030, launched in December 2025, is a platform supporting EU countries in the practical implementation of EU energy efficiency policies. It has brought together senior officials through a series of thematic meetings, enabling the exchange of concrete challenges, best practices and solutions, and helping to accelerate delivery on the ground.
At COP30 in Brazil in November 2025, the Commission and the Solar Impulse Foundation released the joint publication Energy Efficiency: The Silent Money Maker. It highlights concrete and economically viable solutions to improve energy efficiency across buildings, industry and cities, featuring real examples from EU-supported projects under Horizon Europe, the LIFE Programme and the ELENA facility.
6. Create a tradable energy efficiency market
As announced in the Affordable Energy Action Plan, the Commission will explore systems like white certificates and auctions to reward energy savings, attract investment, and turn efficiency into a market-driven commodity. The implemented measures of the Action Plan are listed and updated regularly.
7. Develop skills for energy efficiency
The Commission will actively support EU countries in closing the skills gap, including through national training plans and toolkits.
8. Boost research and innovation funding and partnerships
The Commission will foster research and innovation in energy efficiency technologies to drive next-generation energy efficiency solutions in buildings and industry.
9. Promote international cooperation
The Commission leverages global partnerships to spread best practices on energy-efficient solutions in high-impact sectors, like buildings and efficient products. To deliver on the Global Pledge, the Commission will actively promote energy efficiency at COP31, including through collaboration with the Global South.
10. Increase energy efficiency awareness
Energy efficiency is a policy framework that translates into tangible, meaningful measures and actions at all levels of government. For citizens and businesses to fully reap its benefits, they need to be well informed about the existing rights – and obligations. This is why the Commission continues to promote the many aspects of energy efficiency through examples, facts and figures, while striving to reach citizens, small and medium-sized enterprises, and local communities. The LIFE publication ‘Giving LIFE to Europe’s clean energy transition’ (February 2026) also provides good examples through its 28 inspiring projects.
The roadmap also identified 6 deliverables that were targeted for 2025–2026, focusing on practical cooperation with EU countries and market actors.
Deliverables 2025-2026
Significant progress is being made on these actions and the key achievements include the establishment of the Efficiency Action Forum 2030, the launch of an Energy Efficiency for SMEs Initiative, and local collaboration via tripartite partnerships for data centres.
Furthermore, targeted actions are underway to boost the energy services market through a new pilot scheme, an Electrification Action Plan and key actions on Heating and Cooling as well as a Data Centre Energy Efficiency Package, and to mobilise dedicated financing for SMEs and home renovations.
Launched in December 2025, the Efficiency Action Forum 2030 serves as a high-level platform to support EU countries with the implementation of the roadmap. It addresses foreseen challenges towards reaching the 2030 energy efficiency target and assists EU countries with the practical implementation of their policies.
Core focus areas
- pragmatic implementation: addressing the Energy Efficiency Directive and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive
- competitiveness and infrastructure: enhancing industrial competitiveness and optimising data centres
EU countries best practises
- Portugal: linking energy efficiency with industrial competitiveness
Portugal highlighted its Sistema de Gestão dos Consumos Intensivos de Energia (SGCIE), a mandatory energy management and audit framework for large energy-consuming industrial operators. It shifts the paradigm of energy efficiency from a pure regulatory burden to a powerful competitiveness tool that reduces operating costs and drives industrial transformation.
Key results: achieved €210 million in energy cost savings (~450 ktoe of primary energy savings), with €17 million stemming directly from self-consumption solar PV.
Future focus: shifting attention from auxiliary systems to core industrial processes and decarbonising thermal uses via low-temperature electrification, heat recovery, and biomethane.
Energy Efficiency Directive relevance: demonstrates how the directive’s provisions on energy audits and management systems can support industrial modernisation while enabling decarbonisation.
- Italy: a multi-level financing ecosystem
Italy presented a layered portfolio of financing instruments that support industrial transition and energy efficiency by blending national, regional, and local initiatives.
National level: The Development Contract (managed by MIMIT and Invitalia) backs large-scale projects (>€20 million) with blended grants and loans, supported by the Fund for Industrial Transition for manufacturing grants (>€3 million).
Regional and local levels: Lombardy’s Production Chains and Industrial Ecosystems initiative uses grants, loans, and minibonds for multi-firm collaborations, while local chambers of commerce support smaller agro-food supply chains.
Energy Efficiency Directive relevance: illustrates how diversified, layered financing tools can modernise supply chains and unlock investments across companies of all sizes.
- Finland: national energy efficiency agreement scheme
In place since 1997 and running across four consecutive agreement periods, Finland’s voluntary scheme serves as a central mechanism for fulfilling its EU energy efficiency obligations.
- Key mechanism: utilises the Energy Efficiency Directive’s flexibility by implementing voluntary commitments from companies, property sectors, and public entities as alternative policy measures.
- Success factors: long-term trust, strong annual monitoring, and robust verification systems. In 2024, the scheme provided tailored advisory services to over 220 organisations and engaged 2800 professionals.
- Energy Efficiency Directive relevance: provides a blueprint for combining voluntary commitments, peer learning, and targeted government investment aid to meet cumulative energy savings cost-effectively.
Throughout 2025 and early 2026, the Commission completed key procedural steps for its upcoming Electrification Action Plan and actions on heating and cooling. It included extensive stakeholder consultations, dedicated workshops on waste heat, and rigorous policy evaluations in line with the Energy Efficiency Directive’s Article 35(2).
This evidence base informs both the short-term response to the energy crisis and the long-term post-2030 structural policy framework. It aims to accelerate the deployment of clean heat solutions for a rapid displacement of fossil fuels in heating and cooling, focusing heavily on electrification, such as the roll-out of heat pumps, while safeguarding consumer affordability and securing EU value chains.
To bridge the gap between public policy and industry action, 2 key partnerships are being deployed under the Roadmap framework, moving at distinct stages of implementation.
Data centre integration model: On 3 June 2026, 14 European industry associations agreed to develop an EU model for tripartite agreements between data centre operators, energy stakeholders, and public authorities. This framework facilitates the sustainable integration of data centres into the energy grid, notably through the reuse of waste heat in district heating systems.
The model will later expand to other waste-heat-producing sectors, while the European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition will lead reflections on project de-risking.
Better Homes Partnership: As a key initiative under the European Affordable Housing Plan and the Citizen’s Energy Package, the Better Homes Partnership will accelerate affordable, high-quality home renovations, decarbonise heating systems, and stimulate innovative local solutions. It will act as a collaborative central point for regional authorities, housing providers, developers, energy suppliers, and financial institutions to pitch replicable, concrete projects that benefit from Commission endorsement to overcome market barriers.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face critical bottlenecks to energy renovation, including limited internal capacity, high upfront costs, and restricted access to capital. To solve this, the European Commission and the EIB Group launched the Energy Efficiency for SMEs Initiative. The Initiative is also backed operationally by the European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition, a three-party dialogue platform between EU countries, financial institutions, and industry.
- timeline and investment target: 2025 – 2027, to mobilise €65 billion supporting around 350 000 SMEs
- delivered impact 2025: €6 billion in financing deployed, aiding up to 150 000 SMEs
- banking partnerships: to set up joint financing platforms launched with intermediary banks to scale funding
The European Energy Efficiency Financing Coalition’s SME working group activates demand and designs new business models for energy efficiency services. The group is also finalising a comprehensive blueprint for an SME one-stop shop.
In line with the Affordable Energy Action Plan and the Clean Energy Investment Strategy, the Commission and the EIB Group are preparing a 2026 pilot scheme to fast-track "as-a-service" business models. ‘Energy Efficiency as a Service’ is backed by the InvestEU Sustainability Guarantee Product and supported by specialised investment funds and the InvestEU Advisory Hub. It is targeting €500 million in leveraged financing.
Aligned with the Union’s digital strategy, this package mandates environmental transparency from data centre operators and pushes for the adoption of best available technologies. It is being prepared for adoption, following the baseline reporting scheme established in 2024, and the comprehensive EU Tech Sovereignty Package adopted on 3 June 2026.
The data centres package will include a
- Report to the European Parliament and Council: an exhaustive assessment of the 2024 baseline data, mapping out the pathway to a sustainable digital sector.
- Rating Scheme and label: a Delegated Regulation that automatically generates an electronic sustainability label based on reported data, classifying data centre performance.
- Minimum performance standards: the launch of a consultation process to phase out inefficient technologies.