Floriane Bernardot

9 European ministers call for reforming the Emission Trading Scheme

An awkward context for the EU ETS The European Commission has proposed backloading 900 million tonnes of CO2 quotas in surplus. On 16 April, the European Parliament voted against this proposal, to ensure industrial activity would not be (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 17 May 2013 | 17h11 | 93 visits
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Serbian Covenant of Mayors Club: willing to meet the challenge!

This 2nd meeting was crucial for Serbian Covenant of Mayors Signatories, as their current situation within the European initiative is awkward: none of the 7 Signatories have prepared their SEAPyet, and 3 of them have been suspended. (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 26 April 2013 | 12h06 | 136 visits
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Energy Performance Contracting: some hints

In this framework, the Covenant of Mayors Office organises monthly, country-specific webinars on the topic and participated last January in the ESCO 2013 conference. These activities provided occasions to better understand the EPC regulatory (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 22 April 2013 | 18h19 | 157 visits
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EU post-2020 energy & climate policy: what about local authorities?

In its Green Paper "A 2030 framework for climate and energy policies", the Commission obviously "forgot" to mention local authorities, although they play an essential part in reaching the EU objectives. Read our article on this topic Excerpts (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 17 April 2013 | 14h52 | 209 visits
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Plan modal shift to sustainable transport

Reducing energy use in the transport sector also involves reorganising city space so as to give public space back to the inhabitants. The local authority has, therefore, an indispensable role to play in changing the current situation. The car (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 16 April 2013 | 13h40 | 142 visits
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37 organisations call for a successor to IEE programme!

The IEE programme may simply never get a successor as the new framework programme for Research and Innovation – “Horizon 2020”, supposed to host it, mainly targets technological solutions. See our previous article on the matter. But why hasn’t a (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 9 April 2013 | 11h07 | 143 visits
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Your city in 2050: backcasting as a method to plan the energy future

The project partners (Munich, Lille, Bistrita, Odense, Milton Keynes, Modena, Dobrich, HafenCity University Hamburg and Energy Cities) gathered around a single objective: designing their local energy model for 2050. Filipa Pimentel and Juan del (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 5 April 2013 | 12h11 | 142 visits
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Will we say goodbye to the Intelligent Energy-Europe programme?

For 10 years now, the IEE programme has been seamlessly supporting local authorities’ actions. A large number of local sustainable energy policies would doubtlessly not have seen the light without IEE. And Energy Cities does know about it, as the (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 4 April 2013 | 13h48 | 564 visits
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A local heat plan to match need and available resource

These can take many forms: power plant, combined heat and power unit, waste incineration plant, free industrial heat, wastewater, refrigerating units, data centres, surplus capacities from biomass boilers, etc. There are also low temperature (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 2 April 2013 | 15h47 | 125 visits
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Energy technologies and innovation: Energy Cities' call to the European Commission

Energy Cities has responded to the consultation and reminds the Commission that the “successful market transformation towards low-carbon economy and the achievement of the overall EU energy policy objectives” require local and regional authorities (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 21 March 2013 | 15h14 | 154 visits
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EU Energy roadmap 2050: "buildings must be a central element of the EU's long term energy policy"

In this report, the European Parliament acknowledges that the building sector must be "a central element" of the EU’s long-term energy policy, and calls for a reduction in the energy consumption of the existing building stock "by 80% by 2050 (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 15 March 2013 | 17h11 | 411 visits
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Sustainable Mobility Week Ceremony: two Energy Cities' members awarded!

Zagreb wins 2012 European Mobility Week Award The Croatian capital was chosen ahead of the Swedish towns of Gävle and Östersund (the 2 other finalists), for its innovative approach to citizen engagement. They indeed made the Mobility Week a (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 13 March 2013 | 10h31 | 105 visits
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Mendrisio (CH): Display® is a “tool for managing our public building stock”

The Swiss Canton of Ticino (located in the Italian part of Switzerland) has set itself the objective of reducing its buildings’ energy use by 30% within 24 years. Currently, the building sector consumes 30% of the total energy used in Ticino. (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 8 March 2013 | 16h41 | 100 visits
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Oeiras’ Families Towards Sustainability

Each year, the 50 families of Oeiras participating in the project receive in their homes the visit of the project’s team, which performs a diagnostic focusing on the energy use, as well as the environmental behaviour, associated with the (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 4 March 2013 | 18h04 | 100 visits
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Energy Transition: Let's look at it in Växjö (SE) - Register !

Find the draft programme, all information and access to the registration form at www.energy-cities.eu/vaxjo2013

By Floriane Bernardot, on 21 February 2013 | 17h09 | 339 visits
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Know the territory’s metabolism so as to optimise local potential

This situation will not improve as long as we keep considering a macroeconomic “financial accounting” system. A “cost accounting system” is needed at territorial level to understand how territories mobilise and transform the biosphere’s resources (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 19 February 2013 | 14h50 | 168 visits
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Transform railway stations into territorial structuring hubs

Highways have structured urban and peri-urban space based on the conviction that private cars would be eternal. Energy use increased drastically, and so did local pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions. Many cities are still struggling to find (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 12 February 2013 | 16h30 | 170 visits
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Sustainable housing: yet another initiative from Brussels Capital

These information centers will provide households with advice on how to improve energy efficiency and use renewable energy sources. This might not sound groundbreaking, but there is more to it: experts are also set to help private homeowners to (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 8 February 2013 | 14h09 | 135 visits
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Sustainable energy funding: ELENA-KfW implemented by BPCE group in France

Provided within the framework of the Intelligent Energy Europe II programme, this funding facility seeks to help small and medium-sized municipalities to deploy sustainable energy programmes. ELENA-KfW provides loans to Participating Financial (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 4 February 2013 | 17h17 | 144 visits
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Energy Roadmap 2050: Parliament’s opinion in line with Energy Cities'

Energy Cities welcomes some of the proposals, which are in line with our work towards the energy transition of local authorities. Indeed, the European Parliament notably: acknowledges “the role that energy plays in spurring growth and economic (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 28 January 2013 | 17h43 | 214 visits
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Energy transition: KEEP THE MONEY SPENT ON ENERGY NEAR TO HOME

This would mean misunderstanding the relationship between the energy transition and the stimulation of territorial economies. In a city with 250,000 inhabitants, the annual energy bill for supplying heating, domestic hot water and electricity to (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 22 January 2013 | 16h35 | 140 visits
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2013: EU context, upcoming events and projects

European context Presidency of the EU in 2013 The EU presidency will be assumed by Ireland (January-June 2013) and Lithuania (July-December 2013). Next budget of the EU The budget for the EU multi-annual financial framework (MFF) (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 11 January 2013 | 15h09 | 305 visits
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End of the year, end of the world ? Beginning of a new era ?

Energy Cities’ board of directors and staff wish you a very Happy Festive Season ! Our blog will be less active during this holiday period, but we will be happy to write for you again in January 2013. So, far from imagining that the end of the (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 20 December 2012 | 17h38 | 145 visits
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"30 Energy Cities' proposals for the energy transition of cities and towns" now available in Polish and Czech !

M. Michniowski, Deputy Mayor of Bielsko-Biala, has shown the will to get Energy Cities’ 30 proposals for the energy transition of cities and towns translated. The association "Region Beskidy" was very interested and agreed to support the idea (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 12 December 2012 | 10h44 | 383 visits
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Energy transition: 1.7 Prepare an Energy Transition Action Plan

However, it is more difficult to agree on the strategies that need to be implemented to get there as they involve changing trajectories and, therefore, habits. This disturbs the relations between players and leads to inertia. Things become even (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 11 December 2012 | 11h50 | 161 visits
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Cohesion policy 2014-2020: priority to local energy strategies!

Nearly 4,500 local authorities representing 170 million inhabitants voluntarily committed to achieving and going beyond the EU CO2 reduction objective by signing the Covenant of Mayors. Energy Cities is a strong supporter of this mainstream (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 6 December 2012 | 16h00 | 183 visits
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Intelligent Energy Europe III: Energy Cities calls for EU Member States to support the programme

"Our networks welcome the general direction and focus for Horizon 2020, the new financial framework programme for research and innovation that aims to bring, through a single set of rules, a major simplification to EU funding instruments for (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 30 November 2012 | 16h16 | 195 visits
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Doha Conference: 30 proposals for the energy transition of cities and towns

These proposals are structured around five strategic axes : Empowering local actors, Knowing our territories’ resources and flows, Rethinking finance in general, Inventing a new local governance, Urban planning as a way of reducing energy use. (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 27 novembre 2012 | 15h47 | 336 visits
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5,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided by ENGAGE participants in Pamplona

450 posters of local players were realised in Pamplona during the 14-month local ENGAGE campaign. 54 citizens conducted detailed monitoring of their energy consumption and reduced it by 9% in a year on average. Local stakeholders were also (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 26 November 2012 | 17h41 | 170 visits
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Milton Keynes (GB) invents the city of tomorrow

"Inventing our energy future" The event was organised by Milton Keynes Council in the framework of the IMAGINE project. It was attended by 35 key city influencers who put their points across on a range of low carbon living issues of importance (...)

By Floriane Bernardot, on 23 November 2012 | 15h43 | 319 visits
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