Waking up the giant

Project partners, members of the national Advisory and Dissemination Boards (ADBs) as well as international guests met on 6 and 7 June 2019 for the ALLIES midterm conference in Prague. KÖVET, FEWE and B.A.U.M. reported on their progress in establishing LFEEEs (Locally-rooted Financing Entities for Energy Efficiency) in Hungary, Poland and Germany respectively. The overall goal of ALLIES are new financing models and structures for energy efficiency means.

Panel discussion at the conference (from left to right):  Katalin Herner (KÖVET), David Rusnok (CIC2030), Szymon Liszka (FEWE), Ludwig Karg (B.A.U.M. Consult), Todor Galev (CSD Sofia), Wolfgang Teubner (ICLEI), Kamelia Georgieva (National Trust EcoFund)

The conference program also allowed for an extensive exchange of experience among experts on energy efficiency and climate protection in companies and municipalities. The participants discussed, among other topics,

  • the legal and political framework for LFEEEs in their respective countries,
  • financing models for energy efficiency projects,
  • arguments and triggers to convince SMEs, municipalities and citizens to foster and to invest in energy efficiency.
The aim, to put it in the words of ALLIES' project leader Ludwig Karg from B.A.U.M. Consult Munich, is "to wake up the sleeping giant of energy efficiency". Presentations of good practices – among others by Todor Galev from CSD Sofia, Kamelia Georgieva from the National Trust EcoFund (both Bulgaria), Vjeran Pirši? from Eco Island Krk (Croatia) and David Rusnok from the EUKI project CIC2030 (Germany) – left the listeners feeling confident, that a united effort will be successful in the long run.
 

Impressions of the ALLIES midterm conference