We would like to share with you our latest publication “Improving the Energy Efficiency of Residential Buildings in Revitalisation Areas – Toolkit” – it is published and can be downloaded from the EDINA project website.

The publication contains – among others, information on improving energy efficiency in revitalization areas and methods of comprehensive improvement of energy efficiency by improving the technical performance of buildings in the investment processes. The toolkit is dedicated to city/municipal offices with municipal revitalization programs or other subsidy programs supporting the renovation of private buildings, property owners/managers, housing communities/cooperatives, social housing association, NGOs, or other interested parties.

The toolkit is the result of a two-year project entitled: “EDINA -Energy efficient development of Special Revitalisation Zones and urban areas ”.  The leader of the project is The Polish Institute for Urban and Regional Development, while the partners are: the Energy conservation Foundation and the Initiative Wohnungswirtschaft Osteuropa  (IWO e.V.).

The videos summarising the EDINA project are available here: https://edina.irmir.pl/improving-energy-efficiency-of-buildings-in-revitalization-areas-films/

Within the project duration a series of webinars under “Revitalization Academy” was organized. Webinars were recorded and those in English were covering the topics ( link available under the title):

• INTRODUCTION TO ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND URBAN REGENERATION
  • The way to integrate energy efficient housing renovation and urban regeneration
  • Great examples of integration of deep renovation and urban regeneration
  • Rocketing the renovation projects. The pace of deep energy efficient renovation in the capital city of Lithuania, Vilnius
• Climate neutral quarters: inspirations and learnings and Serial Refurbishment – path to reach climate neutral quarters
• PRO-Heritage Best Practice Examples for Energy Efficient Historic Buildings

We invite you to check out the webinars and other materials that were developed under the EDINA project https://edina.irmir.pl/en/

We hope those would be useful and help us all to improve energy efficiency in Europe.

Further Information

• Allocating EU Funds in CEE: A Webinar
• CEEweb for Biodiversity’s Website

As a result, the project has created a Best Practice Database of initiatives, actions, projects, and investment measures, providing recommendations on how money expenditures go from a climate perspective.

Within this recorded webinar, every country representative presented such examples. If you missed it, find the recording here, as well as the presentations.

Moreover, feel free to visit, consult and collaborate with our Best Practice Database

From Bielefeld to Braga via electric car

On Friday, October 1st at 04.00 a.m., Tobias Dewald and Jens Ohlemeyer started the electric road trip in Bielefeld. They needed to stick to a very strict plan of accessing the available hyper power charging stations on their way to reach Braga in Portugal in time on Sunday. Fortunately all the HPCs (hyper charging stations) in Germany, Belgium and France worked flawlessly and recharged the battery from 10% to 100% in 45 to 60 minutes. In Brussels, Tobias Dewald and Jens Ohlemeyer, met with Katerina Fortun from the Climate Pact Secretary of the European Commission to hand over urgent demands of the Three4Climate students for more climate action by the European Union.

From Braga to Beja by train

On Sunday morning, October 3rd, the two teachers were welcomed from the partner school in Braga, and continued their journey by train to Porto and Lisbon, taking their e-bikes with them. On the comfortable train to Lisbon, they could also recharge their personal batteries after two days of travelling without much sleep.

From Beja to Loulé by e-bike

On the final day of the journey, Monday, October 4th, the teacher team took the train from Lisbon to Beja and cycled 50 kilometers from Beja to Aljustrel/Messejana to visit a large 13.9 MWp solar power plant (electricity for about 8,000 households) to show and communicate where our energy should come from and that our future is electric and emission free. From there it was another 100
kilometers by e-bike to Loulé at the Algarve coast. Due to the very hilly terrain at the Algarve and quite some luggage, the last part of the journey was rather exhausting despite the electric support of the bicycles. On top of that, 23 kilometers before the destination of Loulé, the first of the e-bike batteries went offline and 10 kilometers before Loulé, the second e-bike battery was empty.
Hungry and exhausted, but absolutely determined to reach their aim in the intended way by bicycle, the two teachers pushed their bikes with heavy luggage on the last 10 kilometers up the ascents of the Algarve hilly topography and arrived in Loulé at around 11 pm just before midnight.

Cooperation to continue beyond the Three4Climate project

Very happy with the successful emission free journey, Tobias Dewald and Jens Ohlemeyer were welcomed by the partner school in Loulé on Wednesday, October 6th, and worked together with the teachers from Braga on projects to reach climate neutrality in the EU by 2050. Vitor Aleixo, the mayor of Loulé/Salir, invited the mayor of Bielefeld, Pit Clausen, to Portugal to continue exchange
programs with young people from both countries and cities.

The project schools of Braga, Loulé and Bielefeld will also continue their school cooperation beyond the Three4Climate project with official school partnerships for future projects, as the Three4Climate project was a huge success. A lot of inspiring ideas for effective climate protection measures were created with the call for expanding education for a sustainable development in schools. Strengthening the bonds between the participating three countries Portugal, Slovenia and Germany was another very important aspect of the project since new friendships across Europe developed and thrived.

Copyrights for pictures above: Jens Ohlemeyer

Led by the partners PNEC, Guidehouse and adelphi, the ‘vertical workshop’ was organised as part of the BEACON project with a view to connect local and national decision-makers. 25 participants joined the hybrid event both online and in-person in Warsaw. After a coordinated exchange among local representatives, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment kicked-off the second session of the workshop with an overview on the current European initiatives with the German EU council presidency as context to the discussions. For the Polish Ministry of Climate, Mr. Wojciech Augustowski presented the national policy and funding framework to support the carbon neutral transformation in local communities and highlighted the value of such multi-level formats:

“Bringing together key actors from all levels of government, the vertical workshop was a great opportunity to stimulate dialogue with municipalities, voivodships and experts. Exchanging on good practices and challenges to develop joint approaches is key for the transformation towards carbon-neutral cities with a high quality of life.”

Further Information

The presentations from the participating municipalities on their achievements and ambitions for emission reductions, sustainable energy and clean air are available for download:

• Polish Version (vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation,3 MB)
• English Version (translated) (vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation,4 MB)

In dedicated working sessions, participants then turned to discuss their experiences, medium-term ambitions and remaining barriers in the areas of renewable energy production, energy efficiency and clean air. Joint avenues and recommendations for moving forward with regards to the policy framework, support programmes and collaboration were developed for each of the sector areas and subsequently consolidated and prioritised.

Amongst other points, these comprised demands for a clear long-term perspective to enhance certainty for investments in renewables and energy efficiency, strengthening support and incentives for renewable heating sources, better enabling prosumers and expanding consultations across governance levels. The consolidated outcomes will be fed back to local and national administrations to be considered in the next steps.