Multiple Benefits Tools

Multiple Benefits (MB) Tool

Innovation Type: Instruction (MBx Tool- a web-based application)

What is this innovation about?

This multiple benefits tool (MBx Tool) aims to valorize the potential non-energy benefits (e.g. improvement in health and comfort, saving of household income etc., decrease in maintenance costs) of plus energy houses and neighbourhoods, and increase the understanding and added value of SPENs. Recognizing multiple benefits is important for all actors involved in decision making. Policymakers and investors can use this tool to build a convincing case for developing plus energy neighbourhoods, by being able to convincingly identify, track and quantify project performance and the overall benefit of plus energy houses and neighbourhoods for individuals and the society as a whole.

This multiple benefits tool can be a start to trigger systemic change by empowering decision-makers to develop innovative policies and programmes and increase the uptake of SPENs. The tool comprises the development of a replicable methodology of plus energy houses at neighbourhood level for the measurement of social, economic, and environmental benefits and their potential impact. The tool will guide decision makers to have a comprehensive impact assessment of plus energy buildings, rather than just upfront costs. For example, the tool can calculate the saved health care costs in the area due to better living conditions and improved air quality from SPENs.

Neighborhood investment tool is to help policy makers, investors assess what type of monetary and other benefits would investment in SPENs yield (increased local economic activities (SPEN-level), reduced number of residents sick-days, reduction in health expenses (both for an individual and the state) etc.

What kind of challenges it will solve if deployed widely 

Neighbourhood-level SPEN benefits have never been identified, quantified nor monetized. They mostly existed at individual level and wider-societal level. This whole Task under the WP5 is a very innovative one, and is to assess what these benefits would be, and how much they are worth – to residents, policy makers and investors. The tool would be first of a kind to support decision makers in assessing the feasibility of developing SPENs using cost to benefit ratio and return-on-investment.

The following users will find this innovation useful:

The aim is to create a social cost benefit analysis tool that would help investors and policy makers assess non-energy benefits (a.k.a. multiple benefits) of sustainable positive energy neighborhoods. The target group could be split into two main categories: 1) policy makers and 2) investors. The policy maker groups can be further split to: city-level governments, national governments and the EU-level policy makers. On the investor side, while the calculation of the benefits would be performed in the same way, the targeted group of investors would be: project developers, banks, and private investors.

How has syn.ikia project impacted the development of this solution/ process/ tool?

• The syn.ikia project has provided a much necessary context to build the MBx tool in the following ways:
• The tool is designed considering the objectives of syn.ikia to make SPEN decision-making feasible.
• The multi-stakeholder perspective of involved collaborators has been very useful to integrate different insights.
• The demo cases were useful in creating use-cases for the tool using real information and data.
• The project facilitated reach out to all concerned stakeholders to understand their needs and requirements for the tool.

How can this innovation be used beyond syn.ikia project?
The web-based multiple benefits tool will be hosted at BPIE’s website beyond syn.ikia’s project lifetime, following the example of BPIE Datahub (see https://mbxtool.synikia.eu/ ). This multiple benefits tool will be made available to wider industry stakeholders as a mobile-based application. It will be an open access tool for further adaptations and contextualization.

Contact person:
Sheikh Zuhaib, BPIE

For more information, please see: (1) D5.3: On the identified measurable benefits syn.ikia and their potential impact (2) D5.4: A methodology report on the required calculations for the quantification and monetization of benefits (3) D5.5: A web-based calculation tool to support decision-making and investment. https://www.synikia.eu/resource-types/technical-reports/