Building professionals: how to get the RGE label?

Verified 01 January 2021 - Legal and Administrative Information Directorate (Prime Minister), Ministry of the Environment

You are a building professional specialized in energy renovation works or installation of equipment using renewable energies. The RGE (Recognized Guarantor of the Environment) label allows you to value your know-how and to be referenced on the information site intended for individuals. Only works and installations carried out by professionals holding an EGR quality sign are eligible for certain financial aid and tax deductions.

The EGR quality signs meet a reference of means and skills requirements defined in 2 standards.

  • NF Standard X50-091 or equivalent: EGR quality signs corresponding to this standard are called qualifications. They relate to a company's technical capacity, means and skills to carry out high-quality work in a given activity.
  • Standard NF EN ISO/IEC 17065 or equivalent: EGR quality signs corresponding to this standard are called certifications. They relate to the competence of designing and carrying out energy renovation works on a company. This work must be part of an overall package to improve energy performance. The certification also concerns its ability to provide support to the developer throughout the project.
Signs of EGR quality for energy retrofits

Financial aid and tax deductions granted to individuals are conditional on actions in favor of sustainable development.

As a holder of an EGR quality sign, you can therefore carry out energy renovation works for private individuals, owners, in an old dwelling eligible for the following financial assistance:

You must perform specific installation or installation work in one of the following areas:

  • High energy performance or micro-cogeneration gas boilers
  • Materials for thermal insulation of glass walls, insulating shutters and entrance doors facing the exterior
  • Opaque wall thermal insulation materials (front or pinion walls, low floors, roofing terraces, lost attic floors, creeping roof and attic ceilings)
  • Equipment for heating or supplying domestic hot water using wood or other biomass or solar thermal energy if equipped with solar collectors
  • Heat pumps (other than air/air) for the production of heat or domestic hot water
  • A package of works to limit the conventional annual primary energy consumption of the dwelling, in relation to the living space of the dwelling, for heating, domestic hot water and cooling, to 150 kilowatt hours per m²
  • Underground heat exchanger for geothermal heat pumps

These works for the supply and installation of insulation equipment, materials and appliances must comply with high standard levels of energy performance.

Signs of EGR quality studies

The EGR studies quality signs shall relate to the performance of studies on the following subjects:

  • Bioclimatic and passive design of the architectural project, thermal envelope, including air tightness and humidity transfers in the walls
  • Production/distribution/emission energy systems and regulation with or without renewable energy for heating, air conditioning, cooling, domestic hot water, ventilation, lighting

These services can be of different types:

  • Assistance and/or advice to project managers (for decision-making, checking the integration of energy performance targets into the program and monitoring compliance with these targets)
  • Thermal diagnosis, thermal study and energy audit
  • General, total or partial project management (studies and/or direction of the execution of the works contract)
  • Operations and Maintenance Engineering

The EGR quality signs are issued by bodies that have signed an agreement with the State, concluded for a renewable period of 4 years. These bodies are accredited by the French Accreditation Committee (or any other accreditation body signatory to the multilateral agreement taken in the framework of the European coordination of accreditation bodies).

These bodies shall undertake to:

  • Meet common requirements to deliver their quality signs through a charter
  • Framing the criteria for managing quality signs through an agreement with the State

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Bodies issuing EGR quality marks for energy renovation works

Tableau - Bodies issuing EGR quality marks for energy renovation works

Organizations

Works or services concerned

Qualifelec

Electrical work in the field of energy efficiency and/or installation of renewable energy sources

Quality Of R

All installations of equipment using renewable energies

Qualibat

All work related to energy efficiency and renewable energies

Certificate

Comprehensive energy renovation works

RGE ECO Artisan

Energy efficiency works

RGE: energy performance pros

Energy performance related works (construction or renovation)

CERQUAL Quality Certification

Heavy renovation work as part of a comprehensive energy renovation

Organizations issuing EGR quality signs studies

Tableau - Organizations issuing EGR quality signs studies

Organizations

Benefits concerned

OPQIBI

Energy efficiency and renewable energy studies

OPQTECC

Studies on the environmental context of operations, the energy performance of the building envelope, works and equipment resulting therefrom

Certivea

Thermal studies in the housing/detached house and tertiary sectors

LNE

Energy audit conduit

AFNOR

Energy audit conduit

You can get one or more EGR quality signs if you are a building professional helping to improve energy performance.

Warning  

If a company has more than one establishment, the organization issuing the EGR quality signs shall request that all requirements be met at the level of each establishment (head office and secondary establishments).

Foreigner professionals

Foreigner professionals must apply for EGR quality signs from a French qualification or certification body. They shall provide the documents proving requirements equivalent to those of the French system, issued by the competent authorities and services of the country of origin. The company may also be qualified or certified by an organization in its country.

Work carried out by a professional from a the European Economic Area (EEA) allow you to get help. The trader must meet the criteria for obtaining EGR quality signs. Quotes and invoices must be written in French.

Subcontracting

Sub-contracting companies must also hold an EGR quality sign.

A maximum subcontracting threshold is defined by the body issuing the EGR quality signs in order to ensure that the company's know-how is maintained. This threshold is between 30% and 50% turnover from the installation of equipment or materials. It is assessed by qualification or certification.

You must choose the EGR quality sign according to your activity and meet different criteria to obtain it.

Legal, administrative and legal criteria

To request a quality sign, you must meet criteria of regularity of administrative, fiscal, legal and social situation.

The file to be provided shall contain the following documents:

  • Extract of the Kbis and/or registration in the Chamber of Trades and Registration Insee (Siren, Siret of applicant establishments where applicable, and NACE code)
  • Certificate of the Urssaf dated less than 3 months from the date of filing of the application file
  • Civil liability and construction insurance certificates valid at the date of filing of the file

Please note

you will also need to provide a record of claims that have occurred in the last 4 years. The body issuing the EGR quality signs shall evaluate the statement and take it into account when deciding on the award.

Criteria of regularity and competence

You must meet financial, professional, technical and human resources criteria for the category of work concerned.

You must provide the following justifications:

  • Proof of mastery of the knowledge of one or more technical site managers designated by establishment
  • Compliance with requirements relating to the human resources resources identified, for example, by the number of staff, their initial or continuing training, their positioning in collective agreements, their professional experience and, possibly, their entitlements
  • Skills in design, site coordination and consultancy in a comprehensive offer of building energy renovation
  • Financial information on at least the last 2 closed accounting years for the body issuing the EGR quality signs to check the consistency and adequacy of your means, or even to assess your financial health
  • Compliance with the requirements of the material resources needed to carry out the services concerned (for example, study, consultancy, production and inspection resources): these requirements are defined according to the specific characteristics of the sector of activity and the sign of quality concerned

Quality criteria for works

You must provide a minimum of 2 representative references for the construction of projects completed in the last 4 years in the designated EGR activity.

The body issuing the EGR quality signs shall ask customers directly about the conditions for carrying out one or more of the references provided. They include the following:

  • Quote
  • Invoice
  • Energy Assessment Report
  • Customer Satisfaction Certificate

After technical instruction of the application file by a building or renewable energy expert, a certificate is issued to you if you meet all the conditions for obtaining it.

It shall be valid for a maximum period of 4 years, as laid down by the body issuing the EGR quality marks. For any renewal request, you must submit to a new on-site performance audit in progress or completed.

The certificate must enable the certified person and each of his establishments covered by the quality sign to be identified. It shall contain the following information:

  • Name of the body issuing the EGR quality sign
  • Name, address, legal form and name of the legal person responsible for the certified person
  • Reference to the qualification or certification repository and other applicable documents on which the qualification or certification is based
  • Domain(s) of the assigned quality sign(s)
  • Insurance companies with which the certified has declared insurance
  • Effective date and duration of validity of the qualification or certification
  • Certificate Due Date

The issuing of the certificate shall be subject to a registration procedure carried out by the body issuing the EGR quality signs.

Your contact details and your qualification or certification are published using any media that allow public information.

Within 2 years of the granting or renewal of the qualification or certification, the organization issuing the EGR quality signs shall monitor the completion of a site. This work must have been under way or completed for less than two years or for less than four years if there is no such work.

The body issuing the EGR quality signs shall define the follow-up to this check as part of the investigation or the follow-up procedure.

The annual monitoring makes it possible to monitor compliance with legal, administrative, legal and financial criteria and the maintenance of human resources. In the event of a change which may affect the qualification or certification obtained, the organization shall maintain it or initiate a review procedure.

In order to maintain or issue a quality sign, the company accepts that the following data from its yards may be transmitted:

  • Company SIREN and SIRET No.
  • Type of work
  • Location of the work
  • Date of completion of the work
  • Body issuing the quality sign

These data are transmitted by the State administration, theAnah: titleContentand the Business for the management of financing and the guarantee of social home ownership (SGFGAS). This data is addressed to the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe) and the bodies issuing the EGR quality signs.

The company may refuse the transmission of such data, but in this case the quality sign shall be suspended.

The body issuing the quality signs may also randomly select the site or sites to be audited on the basis of this information.

The body issuing the EGR quality signs may impose penalties on companies holding or applying for an EGR quality sign. They may be penalized in the following situations:

  • They do not comply with the rules applicable to their quality sign
  • They carry out work that does not comply with the rules of the art
  • They claim a false sign of EGR quality
  • They shall assume the identity of a public authority or present themselves as belonging, directly or indirectly, to one of its departments

Prior to the imposition of a sanction, the companies concerned may submit their comments.

Penalties of up to 2 years may be:

  • Suspension of the quality sign
  • Removal of one or more quality signs
  • Prohibition of access to one or more quality signs

If the performance check on a category of work reveals one or more non-conformities, the body issuing the EGR quality signs may incorporate the following procedures:

  • Control of additional construction site on the controlled category of work or another category of work
  • Hearing of the company
  • Request for justifications and additional documents
  • Additional training to maintain the quality sign in the controlled category of work

Please note

third parties may lodge alerts or complaints with the body issuing the EGR quality signs. This concerns companies that do not respect consumer protection or use false quality signs, for example.