Prêts

Prêts is committed to make sustainable living achievable for all, helping utilities become champions of this vital global movement. It’s their mission to make every home greener, starting with energy bill savings. 

According to De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), just 6% of homeowners are willing and able to invest €20.000 or more in making their house more sustainable, while the average investment needed to get to an energy neutral home is about €24.000. To complicate things, DNB also shows that nearly 80% of sustainable home renovations are currently being financed from savings, with the second largest source of funding being subsidies, and the third one being ‘other’. Less than 10% of people relied on a bank loan, and even fewer people made use of the Warmtefonds. DNB theorizes this is a combination of unfamiliarity, loan-aversion, and an unclear business case. 

Independent financial platform

Prêts believes the loan application process adds more complexity to average consumers and that it can develop the solutions needed to reach the 1.7 million households that do not have the cash to invest. They’ve built an embedded return on investment calculator and independent financial platform for sustainable home renovations. Their tool lives inside energy retailer’s websites and apps and focuses on showing the potential returns and cash savings from investing in sustainable home renovations, personalized to a home’s specific energy usage patterns and family budget. It then aids the customer in identifying the right way to finance these investments and streamlining the overall process. 

Prêts was founded by serial entrepreneur Eugène Lubbers and Gerard van Swieten, with Peer Fisser as late joiner.

Let’s make the energy transition accessible for everyone!

At Rubio we believe that making the energy transition accessible for everyone is key to enabling a Just Transition, and we consider Prêts’ solution to be the missing piece here. They connect the dots between energy conservation and eco-friendly home investments, simplifying the journey towards energy efficiency for homeowners, backed by their trusted utility service. 

Want to learn more about Prêts? Visit their website: https://www.prets.io/ 

For the curious: the name Prêts was inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, who wrote “La terre n’est pas une héritage de nos parents, c’est un prêt de nos enfants.” – in English: “The earth is not an inheritance from our parents, it is a loan from our children.”