Announcement of the Code of Conduct, a new European quality label for EPC-contracts
10. 10. 2013
One objective of the Transparense project, and probably the central one, is building trust in and elevating the quality of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) by creating the European EPC Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct defines the basic values, principles, and guidelines in terms of ESCOs behaviour that are considered fundamental for safeguarding the quality of EPC service, maximizing energy efficiency improvement measures' energy and cost savings and their sustainability.
Developing a Code of Conduct is an essential part of building a professional EPC community with shared values and a common purpose. The Transparense project acts as a stakeholder forum which will agree on norms to guide professional behaviour of Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) and bring transparency into the EPC market. The Code of Conduct is also meant to influence other EPC actors beside ESCOs, such as clients and EPC project facilitators, providing information on EPC excellence standards to be met by ESCOs.
The Code of Conduct defines the basic values, principles, and guidelines in terms of ESCOs behaviour that are considered fundamental for safeguarding the quality of EPC service, maximizing energy efficiency improvement measures' energy and cost savings and their sustainability. The EPC quality within the Transparense project is a measure of how well the service level delivered by the ESCO matches clients expectations. The Code of Conduct is going to be based on the voluntary self-regulation of ESCOs, and will therefore not be legally binding.
The ESCOs and clients conduct their business within the framework of relevant laws, regulations and internal policies. However, these do not govern all behaviour inherent to the EPC. Therefore, the Code of Conduct will help ESCOs and clients to understand exactly what quality EPC stands for and how they can expect other actors to conduct themselves.
So far, the Transparense project partners have identified core EPC values (ethics) and principles of conduct (behaviour) deriving from values. In order to provide additional relevant information and to improve the quality of the starting set of benchmarks for expected minimal ethical conditions and affirmative behaviour, this initial set of values and principles is now being tested by project partners at national level.
