At the 2026 General Assembly, we organised a ‘One-Stop-Shop Marketplace’ to discuss how Energy Agencies act as facilitators, presenting ‘CROSS (Croatian One-Stop-Shop)’ and how this model is helping local authorities move from renovation ambition to actual delivery.
The Impact of the CROSS One-Stop-Shop Model
The presentation highlighted the scale and potential of the approach: in just three years, CROSS has helped mobilise €66.7 million in public renovation investment across four regions and 88 municipalities in north-west Croatia.
The central message was that a one-stop shop is not just a support service but a practical delivery mechanism that can connect:
- Technical preparation
- Financing
- Procurement
- Project implementation
Identifying Barriers to Public Building Renovation
What made the exchange especially valuable was that the presentation was only one part of the conversation. Following the presentation, an interactive session using a World Café format allowed participants to go deeper into the specific barriers that public building renovation actors are facing across regions.
Several common challenges clearly emerged from the workshop:
- Limited capacity in the construction sector and among project designers.
- Poor or incomplete data on public building stock.
- Weak monitoring of renovation outcomes.
- Difficulty securing funding and launching tenders within tight timeframes.
Participants also discussed how fragmented incentives can undermine efficiency gains — for example, when building users no longer directly feel the impact of energy savings, or when calls are designed without clear long-term operational objectives.
Future Priorities for Public Energy Efficiency Projects
The discussions also pointed to practical priorities for the future to streamline public sector energy renovations:
- Stronger building registries and smart metering.
- Better monitoring systems and databases.
- More effective ways to reinvest energy savings.
- Better alignment between project design, procurement, and funding mechanisms.
Another important point was the need to think beyond first renovations and prepare for the next cycle of upgrades, with building passports and stronger facility management seen as part of the answer.
Building a Credible Renovation Pipeline
The exchange confirmed that many regions are facing the same structural issues. It also reinforced the value of integrated one-stop-shop models such as CROSS in helping public authorities navigate complexity and build a credible renovation pipeline.
