Financing low-energy houses
The Housing Bank and Nordic Ecolabelling have entered into a collaboration agreement to market houses with the Swan label in order to help create a breakthrough for environmentally-friendly housing.
THE SWAN. Houses with the Swan label meet the environmental requirements for financing via the Housing Bank’s basic loan, where up to 90 percent financing is offered.
There is an increasing focus on energy efficient solutions, and several house producers are developing low-energy versions of their catalogue houses.
Supporting low-energy
The Norwegian State Housing Bank promotes low-energy houses and requires low-energy qualities for the projects they are financing. The bank also actively supports low-energy demonstration projects and provides support for development and execution of pilot projects with a high transfer value, which in the long term can help to meet national environmental targets. Houses with the Swan label meet the requirements for financing via the Housing Bank’s basic loan, where up to 90 percent financing is offered. A number of major contractors have entered into agreements to build detached homes with the Swan label.
Labeling flats
Nordic Ecolabelling is making the requirements for Swan label houses more stringent, while also making it possible for flats to have the Swan label. The Swan label provides quality assurance that the house has a good indoor climate, low energy consumption, good standard, low impact on the environment and contains few hazardous materials.
Labeling nursery schools
Together with Nordic Ecolabelling in Norway and SINTEF Building and Infrastructure, the Housing Bank has initiated a project to gain knowledge on how good-quality,healthy and environmentally-friendly nursery schools can be built in Norway. The knowledge that is gained will lead to a proposal being developed for requirements in relation to nurseries being accredited with the Swan label.
Further reading:
The Housing Bank: The Swan Nordic Ecolabel
Norwegian Building Research Institute: Measured air-tightness in low-energy houses (pdf)
Nordic Ecolabelling: Swan-labelling of Small houses
Detatched Swan labeled houses
Fokus Bygg, which is a member of Mesterhus, has been building 17 detached homes with the Swan label in a chain at Valderøy outside Ålesund. The houses are constructed as turn-key, low-energy homes and are the first housing development in Norway to have the Swan ecolabel.
Related Articles
World's largest wind turbine
Norwegian company Sway AS is provided with funding in the amount of NOK 137 million to demonstrate a new wind turbine prototype.
The Nordic region
The Nordic region consists of five countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. On a national level the individual countries often provide a similar service comparable to Nordic Energy Sol
Intpow
INTPOW is a networking organization between Norwegian and foreign players in the Renewable Energy industry. We are a non-profit joint venture between Norwegian Renewable Industry and the Norwegian Gov
