On the 1st of September 2010, the City of Lille (FR) launched an ambitious Energy Challenge - Défi Crèche: in one year, kindergarten would significantly decrease their energy consumption, thanks to a wide communication programme!

By the end of November 2010, training sessions enabled to inform more than 200 people working in kindergarten on the best energy practices. 12 kindergarten benefited from these activities.

Lille has had a long experience in the Display® campaign and won the Toward Class "A" Award in 2011. Display® posters have been posted in kindergarten to show not only to the staff working in these buildings but also to persons in charge their maintenance and to visitors how the buildings perform. The Display® communication was accompanied by additional efficient posters listing 10 top tips to be done at home.

To participate in the Energy Challenge, kindergarten managers were invited to collect best ideas and simple actions to improve the building energy efficiency and to implement them in 2011.

Last month, three winners have been rewarded for their energy and water performance and for their best ideas. Thanks to the success of this Energy Challenge involving all via simple actions, the City of Ville plans to drive again this competition in 2012 and to extend it to other categories of public buildings!

© photo City of Lille

C’est lors du salon des maires qu’Energy Cities et Lyonnaise des Eaux ont signé un accord pour accompagner les collectivités territoriales dans la réduction de leurs consommations d’eau et d’énergie de leurs bâtiments publics dans le cadre de la Campagne européenne Display®.

Les collectivités locales pourront s’appuyer sur ce partenariat pour collecter automatiquement les données de consommations dans leurs bâtiments, grâce à la technologie de télérelevé.

Lire le communiqué de presse

The European web portal "Smart-e Buildings" was launched in May 2011. It is part of a wider campaign involving Energy Cities, EREC, Climate Alliance, leading agencies and companies specialised in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable communication. It is supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Commission.

The objective of the campaign is to achieve a massive EU-wide mobilisation and empowerment of cities, citizens, building owners, private and public bodies, parliamentarians and the media for energy-efficient buildings. The interactive web portal is linked to a large number of social networking sites.

Take part in the competition !

Go to www.takeyourenergyback.eu/smart-e-competition and send a text with a picture or a video to tell us ...

How does it feel to live in a Smart-e home ?!

• Give details on how you’ve made your home more energy efficient, and if possible the money invested.
• Tell us what it has changed for you and your family : comfort, energy and/or money saved, energy awareness.
• Show your new home in a video or with pictures !

You represent a local authority ? You represent a company or an association ?

• Give details on the action you carried out and if possible your financial investment.
• Present results such as financial savings (€/year), energy savings (kWh.year), CO2 emissions avoided (kg of CO2 equivalent/year).
• If existing, include a link to a webpage giving more details on your Smart-e story.

Win !

Each month a testimonial is selected and highlighted on the homepage of the European Smart-e Buildings Campaign and receives two water savers designed by Aquaclic ! The Smart-e Competition also rewards a yearly winner !

All testimonials will be displayed at www.takeyourenergyback.eu/smart-e-competition and will be promoted in the Smart-e buildings social networks.

Join the Smart-e buildings campaign on Facebook !

© photo City of Ivanic-Grad (left)
© photos City of Pamplona (right)

The municipality of Bistriţa (Romania) will launch its Display campaign during the European Mobility Week. Elected representatives, school principals, school energy managers and 200 pupils coming from all the schools in Bistriţa will be present. During this event two Display posters will be inaugurated for municipal buildings. In the following two months, all schools will have their own Display posters and the campaign will be launched in each school via a communication campaign.

During the week, the new municipal regulation will be launched allowing for the creation of "Green Energy Teams" in all schools in Bistrita. The teams will be formed by 14 members: the school principal, 10 pupils, a coordinating teacher, school energy manager and the cleaning staff. They will be guided throughout the whole school year by a municipal energy specialist in order to analyse the schools’ energy consumption and to set up and implement an energy savings programme with specific objectives for each school.

Also, starting on the 16th of September informational and promotional material will be distributed including the Display Campaign logo.

Here we are ! 500.

Since last week, the European recognised Display® Campaign counts 500 participants.

We would like to give a very warm welcome to the latest member of the campaign : Sztum (PL).

Located in Northern Poland, this city of about 10,000 inhabitants has just joined the Display network of cities ready to communicate the performance of their public buildings.

Thanks to the European Structural Fund, Sztum has been able to focus on energy efficiency via the project ‘Improving the efficiency of energy use in public buildings in the city of Sztum’, proving its keen interest on issues of sustainable energy use.

A Display® communication event in Geneva, Switzerland.

Looking back on a fruitful history of almost a decade, the success story of the Display® Campaign was recently summed up in a 50-page report that you can read here

This is the title of our most recent publication summarising the results of almost a decade of Display activity. Highlights of the report include: 1. Findings from De Montfort University proving that the average movement of the buildings that have displayed an energy poster is higher than those that have not displayed a poster and this movement is even more significant when communication campaigns are carried out. 2. A special focus on the activities carried out by participants of the Intelligent Energy Europe project called CYBER Display (13 attractive posters with top tips).

What is clear after almost a decade of activity and lobbying is that Display is here to stay! Click on the link below to read the full report http://www.display-campaign.org/IMG...

There are currently 497 Display® participants dominated by over 460 local authorities and 35 private companies. Together these participants have produced over 30,000 posters for nearly 15, 000 buildings. If you join soon you could be the 500th member and join the Campaign that continues to take the lead in the implementation of the EPBD and remain ahead of the times.

Click here to learn how to participate in this pan-European Campaign: http://www.display-campaign.org/about840

The city of Ivanic-Grad (HR), as a member of Energy Cities, joined the Display® Campaign in 2008. The Campaign was carried out by monitoring energy consumption in public buildings.

In the context of this campaign, a competition among kindergartens, elementary schools and high schools was launched in the beginning of 2010.

In those buildings, posters were exhibited and afterwards presented with recommendations for energy savings. Over the year, energy consumption was monitored and at the end of the year new posters were created. Because of the improvements in all the buildings which participated in the competition and moved towards (some of them even reached) class ‘A’, the prizes for all participants were secured.

During the April 15th, 2nd Energy Day “Better be aware” was held in primary school Stjepan Basaricek, in Ivanic-Grad. For that occasion, mayor of Ivanic-Grad Boris Kovacic seized the opportunity to congratulate all the participants on achieved results while handed the prizes to them (digital photo camera).

Competition is still running, children and pupils are still saving energy and that’s exactly the message which the city wants to send to all of their citizens.

From 11th to 14th May Udine will host the first edition of "EOS - Exposition of Sustainability". EOS is a fair with meetings, workshops and expositions of private and public actors, dealing with green building, sustainable mobility, territory and energy. It’s addressed to citizens and sector operators.

There will also be a stand of the municipality of Udine presenting CYBER Display project and other activities on environmental matters.

More about this event find here. Leaflet is available here.

Join us in the north of Italy!

Thanks to the significant experience gained throughout 7 magical years of the Display® Campaign, Energy Cities with contributions from Displayers has launched a briefing note for the Concerted Action, national governments and organisations in charge of the transposition of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), interested MEPs and national parliamentarians.

This paper presents not only recommendations on what should contain a European voluntary energy certificate but also communication campaigns that drive the improvements in building energy performance.

Via this paper, Display Participants and Partners would like to express the following:

* Dynamic and participative local communication campaigns are required to allow citizens to understand the importance of efficient buildings and ultimately be linked to the overall objectives of the EPBD: improving the energy performance of buildings in Europe.

* Relevant lessons can be learnt from the experience of local authorities participating in the Display® Campaign. There is an opportunity to benefit from these and not to start from scratch.

* Local authorities are willing and able to continue to lead by example.

* National energy performance certificates need to be harmonised and the certificates need to become more eyecatching so that they can be used effectively for communication purposes.

* National governments and local authorities are encouraged to work together; networking at all public administration levels is supported. To carry this out, they need the support of the European Commission.

Download the briefing note: Towards a voluntary common European Union certification scheme for non-residential buildings.

See also the article written by Peter Schilken and Ian Turner (Energy Cities) published in the Parliament Magazine: Leading by example - April 2011.