Mr Søren Møller, the Deputy Mayor of Odense, President of Energie-Cités and master of ceremonies for the day, got the proceedings underway with a warm welcome to approximately 80 participants representing a broad range of municipalities, associations and energy agencies from throughout Europe.

Ms Susanne Wegefelt of the Directorate-General for Environment and Mr Pedro Ballesteros of the Directorate-General for Energy and Transport, set the scene for the ‘Information Day’ with an update of the current situation regarding sustainable construction and energy performance of buildings and the challenge of implementing the new buildings directive. The Display™ team and representatives of the pilot cities then took over by providing a review of the Display™ project to date.

Representatives of the cities of Rimini (IT), Martigny (CH), Leicester (GB), Bristol (GB), Almada (PT) and Cork (IE) engaged the participants by highlighting the tremendous advantages the Display TM tool provides for municipalities and shared some interesting examples of how the DisplayTM project has lead to a change in how their municipalities deal with energy issues.

Regarding the future of the Display™ Campaign, the next stage of the project titled “Working together towards Class A” was detailed by Energie-Cités (cf. the next article). There was then a call by Utrecht, one of the pilot cities to all the municipalities present who are not yet part of the campaign, to join the Display™ Campaign.

The day ended with the handing over of a certificate to the Region of Eindhoven as the 100th participant to join the Display™ Campaign and a gift to the 21 pilot cities. Further discussions and exchange of ideas and information took place during a cocktail afterwards hosted by the Mayor of Brussels Municipality, Mr Freddy Thielmans. The Display™ team would like to especially thank the City of Brussels for hosting the event in their impressive Salle Gothique.