Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation in the CEE and CIS region
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No #892054.
Nadacia Habitat for Humanity International (Nadacia HFHI) is a regional office of an international NGO, with seat in Bratislava, Slovakia. Nadacia HFHI is a global, non-profit housing organisation with over 40 years of experience with a mission to empower people in the world’s poorest communities to overcome the chronic lack of decent, affordable housing. Nadacia HFHI has been involved in the work of residential energy efficiency in the Balkans and Caucuses since 2010. In addition to residential energy and poverty, Nadacia HFHI in Europe and neighbouring countries engages in the following areas: advocacy and housing rights, housing micro-finance, skills training and financial literacy and housing of vulnerable groups.
Role in the project: Nadacia HFHI is the leader and coordinator of ComAct
Visit the website: https://www.habitat.org/emea
The Centre for Energy Efficiency (ENEFFECT) is a non-governmental organization (NGO), registered as a foundation in 1992. Its highly skilled professionals have long and proven experience in energy planning at municipal and national level and in development and application of energy efficient solutions in buildings and industrial systems in Bulgaria and abroad. Its main activities include assistance to the central and local authorities in development and implementation of energy efficiency policies harmonized with the EU legislation; capacity building (incl. municipal energy planning and SEAP development, trainings on nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEB) design and construction, implementation of energy efficiency measures related to end energy consumption, communication campaigns, etc.); development, management and monitoring of demonstration projects; networking on national and regional level; management of Bulgarian EE & RES Fund.
Role in the project: EnEffect is the coordinator for the Bulgarian pilot case and is in charge of providing financing schemes suitable for energy poor households. Providing tools on how to support low-income households
Visit the website: http://www.eneffect.bg
The Alliance of Lithuanian Consumer Organisations (LVOA-ALCO) unifies 12 consumer associations. Year of establishment – 2012. Seven founding members are the following: Lithuanian Consumer Association, Lithuanian Consumer Union, Consumer Rights Protection Centre, Lithuanian Association of Bank Customers, the Lithuanian Citizens Advice Union, National Consumer Association of Financial Services and Association “For Honesty in Banking”. Newly added members, as of 2020, are: Mažeikiai Consumer Association, Consumer Rights Institute, FiKVA – the Finance and Credit Management Association, Insurance Policyholder Association and APGIDA – the Personal Privacy Protection and Data Security Association.
In May 2013, LVOA-ALCO officially joined BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. Since then, the Alliance has been dedicating considerable resources to get engaged in a field of pan-European policy making.
The main goal of the Alliance is to represent the interests of Lithuanian consumer associations’ in governmental institutions, business structures and non-governmental sector on the national and international level. LVOA-ALCO deals with consumer advice (including energy), promotes consumer interest protection and provides free consultations. Members of the Alliance governing bodies are actively participating in debates on various consumer-related issues on both national and European levels. LVOA-ALCO’s representatives submit their inputs to discourse on consumer affairs, better regulation and major problems arising from environmental, technological and societal change via different formats. LVOA-ALCO is a recognized opinion maker on consumer-related issues for the mass media in Lithuania and has considerable standing among national policy makers. Series of successful communication campaigns and several international level conferences co-organised with the National Parliament (Seimas) increased LVOA-ALCO’s recognition among politicians and have established a strong basis for future role of policy-shaping actor. Members of the Alliance actively conduct research, trainings, and organize conferences and seminars.
LVOA-ALCO has already developed projects specifically focusing on energy issues. Keen to promote the prosumer movement, LVOA-ALCO focused on integrating distributed generation of electricity and heat from renewable sources, especially for multi-family apartment buildings. Since 2017, LVOA-ALCO has already concluded two projects with the focus on solar photovoltaics, renovation and innovative energy production. In 2019, the Alliance joined the STEP consortium, which, under BEUC’s leadership, is directly engaged in the energy poverty issue in 9 EU Member States.
Role in the project: LVOA-ALCO coordinates the Lithuania pilot case
Visit the website: www.lvoa.lt
METROPOLITAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MRI) is a private research institute established in 1989 consisting of nine researchers, with Master or PhD degrees in economics, sociology, or history. MRI focuses on urban development from a social and economic point of view. It also deals with housing policy with focus on social and affordable housing. MRI undertakes research and consultancy, organizes international conferences, and designs and provides training in these areas. Research and consultancy is carried out with and for local governments, development agencies, universities and research institutions, EU institutions, and international organizations.
Role in the project: Having research experience in the field of energy poverty in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, MRI leads the generic research on energy poverty. MRI will also implement the Bulgarian pilot project located in District 3 of Budapest.
Visit the website: https://mri.hu/en/
The Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) is a not-for-profit think-tank with a focus on independent analysis and knowledge dissemination, supporting evidence-based policymaking in the field of energy performance in buildings, throughout Europe and beyond.
BPIE has a multifaceted approach to achieving efficiency improvements in buildings, and promotes policy support to further improve regulatory measures, financial incentives and market conditions that lead to the construction and retrofit of buildings with a high energy performance. The focus is on ensuring the vigorous implementation of the EU legislation linked to buildings across EU Member States, as well as to enhance financing of deep energy renovation of the existing buildings.
BPIE provides open-source research, analysis, knowledge-sharing and advisory activities to the European Institutions, policy-makers in EU Member States and neighbouring countries, the scientific community as well as private sector stakeholders and the civil society.
Role in the project: BPIE is responsible for the communication and dissemination actions. On the policy side, BPIE supports the overall research on energy poverty policies and is responsible for including multiple benefits of building renovation as an additional asset.
Visit the website: www.bpie.eu
Odessa Housing Union association was established in 2001 by Housing Owners Associations of multi apartment buildings’ owners and building cooperatives of Odessa city. The association is a non-profit legal entity which was created with the purpose of protecting the rights and interests of the apartment buildings’ owners, in particular, to maintain and use common property in the buildings of unions of apartment buildings’ owners and building cooperatives and render housing and public utility services of proper quality and at fair tariffs; to preserve and improve operating properties of the apartment buildings; to reduce power resources consumption by tenants and optimize forms of housing stock management.
Role in the project: Odessa Housing Union association is coordinator of the ComAct Pilot case in Ukraine, provides evaluation and elaboration of the pilot results, analyze financing schemes suitable for energy poor households and adapts them to the Ukrainian Pilot context.
Visit the website: www.homeunion.odessa.ua
Habitat Macedonia is a social enterprise of an NGO and two LLCs affiliated with the global non-for-profit poverty housing network Habitat for Humanity and dedicated to providing simple, decent and affordable housing solutions for those living in poverty. Further to creating synergy in addressing the housing needs of the poor through construction and microfinance, the portfolio brings volunteer, capacity development, community development and advocacy components together, raising that way wide public awareness about the transformational ability of the decent housing. Habitat Macedonia was established in 2005, and in 14 years successfully served more than 10.200 families with support in reconstruction, renovation and new builds of homes and more than 24.700 families and individuals with housing support services and advocacy.
Role in the project: HFHM coordinates the implementation of the pilot case in North Macedonia and is in charge of developing the strategy for community involvement.
Website: http://www.habitat.org.mk/
The Housing Initiative for Eastern Europe (IWO) is an NGO bringing together private and public partners who aim at a market-oriented and ecological development of the housing and construction economy in Eastern Europe. Involving relevant stakeholders and experts from various related fields, IWO pursues an integrated approach. Coordinating their comprehensive experiences and solutions regarding business management, technology, energy and financing, IWO aims at sustainable know-how transfer and exchange. Joint activities of IWO, its members and partners shall contribute to the development and implementation of projects and programmes within the housing and building economy in Eastern European countries.
Role in the project: IWO leads and coordinates the implementation of all pilot cases and dissemination of the valuable information of the activities and reached results in the network of CEE and CIS region.
Visit the website: http://www.iwoev.org
ENOVA, established in 2008, is a leading multi-disciplinary development consulting company in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a staff of 35 full-time professionals. The largest portion of the business portfolio is with projects supported by international development and finance institutions such as the UNDP, World Bank (WB), EBRD, IFC, USAID, UNEP, UNIDO, SIDA and the European Commission.
Enova possesses excellent knowledge about the specific conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region and has already been dealing with a range of challenging environmental and development projects in the public and private domain. ENOVA has put into place a quality assurance and safeguard system in accordance with ISO 9001:2008, involving the definition of a clear set of procedures.
Enova’s services cover the whole range of thematic objectives of sustainable development for economic, social and policy cohesion through our 4 thematic divisions: Sustainable Development, Energy and Energy Efficiency, Environment and Climate Change, Policy and Governance.
Role in the project: ENOVA will provide its expertise for preparation of tailor-made financial schemes targeting low-income households living in multi-family apartment buildings. Enova is responsible for setting up and maintenance of the E-Learning Knowledge Sharing Platform on the 5 Pilot Cases.
Visit the website: https://www.enova.ba
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Role in the project: Nadacia HFHI is the leader and coordinator of ComAct
Visit the website: https://www.habitat.org/emea
The Alliance of Lithuanian Consumer Organisations (LVOA-ALCO) unifies 12 consumer associations. Year of establishment – 2012. Seven founding members are the following: Lithuanian Consumer Association, Lithuanian Consumer Union, Consumer Rights Protection Centre, Lithuanian Association of Bank Customers, the Lithuanian Citizens Advice Union, National Consumer Association of Financial Services and Association “For Honesty in Banking”. Newly added members, as of 2020, are: Mažeikiai Consumer Association, Consumer Rights Institute, FiKVA – the Finance and Credit Management Association, Insurance Policyholder Association and APGIDA – the Personal Privacy Protection and Data Security Association.
In May 2013, LVOA-ALCO officially joined BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. Since then, the Alliance has been dedicating considerable resources to get engaged in a field of pan-European policy making.
The main goal of the Alliance is to represent the interests of Lithuanian consumer associations’ in governmental institutions, business structures and non-governmental sector on the national and international level. LVOA-ALCO deals with consumer advice (including energy), promotes consumer interest protection and provides free consultations. Members of the Alliance governing bodies are actively participating in debates on various consumer-related issues on both national and European levels. LVOA-ALCO’s representatives submit their inputs to discourse on consumer affairs, better regulation and major problems arising from environmental, technological and societal change via different formats. LVOA-ALCO is a recognized opinion maker on consumer-related issues for the mass media in Lithuania and has considerable standing among national policy makers. Series of successful communication campaigns and several international level conferences co-organised with the National Parliament (Seimas) increased LVOA-ALCO’s recognition among politicians and have established a strong basis for future role of policy-shaping actor. Members of the Alliance actively conduct research, trainings, and organize conferences and seminars.
LVOA-ALCO has already developed projects specifically focusing on energy issues. Keen to promote the prosumer movement, LVOA-ALCO focused on integrating distributed generation of electricity and heat from renewable sources, especially for multi-family apartment buildings. Since 2017, LVOA-ALCO has already concluded two projects with the focus on solar photovoltaics, renovation and innovative energy production. In 2019, the Alliance joined the STEP consortium, which, under BEUC’s leadership, is directly engaged in the energy poverty issue in 9 EU Member States.
Role in the project: LVOA-ALCO coordinates the Lithuania pilot case
Visit the website: www.lvoa.lt
Habitat Macedonia is a social enterprise of an NGO and two LLCs affiliated with the global non-for-profit poverty housing network Habitat for Humanity and dedicated to providing simple, decent and affordable housing solutions for those living in poverty. Further to creating synergy in addressing the housing needs of the poor through construction and microfinance, the portfolio brings volunteer, capacity development, community development and advocacy components together, raising that way wide public awareness about the transformational ability of the decent housing. Habitat Macedonia was established in 2005, and in 14 years successfully served more than 10.200 families with support in reconstruction, renovation and new builds of homes and more than 24.700 families and individuals with housing support services and advocacy.
Role in the project: HFHM coordinates the implementation of the pilot case in North Macedonia and is in charge of developing the strategy for community involvement.
Website: http://www.habitat.org.mk/
The Centre for Energy Efficiency (ENEFFECT) is a non-governmental organization (NGO), registered as a foundation in 1992. Its highly skilled professionals have long and proven experience in energy planning at municipal and national level and in development and application of energy efficient solutions in buildings and industrial systems in Bulgaria and abroad. Its main activities include assistance to the central and local authorities in development and implementation of energy efficiency policies harmonized with the EU legislation; capacity building (incl. municipal energy planning and SEAP development, trainings on nearly zero-energy buildings (NZEB) design and construction, implementation of energy efficiency measures related to end energy consumption, communication campaigns, etc.); development, management and monitoring of demonstration projects; networking on national and regional level; management of Bulgarian EE & RES Fund.
Role in the project: EnEffect is the coordinator for the Bulgarian pilot case and is in charge of providing financing schemes suitable for energy poor households. Providing tools on how to support low-income households
Visit the website: http://www.eneffect.bg
Burgas is the fourth largest city in Bulgaria, the second biggest on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and the most important economic, transport, trade and touristic centre in South-Eastern Bulgaria. During the last four years, Burgas municipality successfully carried out an energy efficiency programme in private multi-family panel block residential buildings reducing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions: with the support of the National Programme for Energy Efficiency, half of all multi family buildings with more than 36 flats on the territory of the city have been retrofitted (counting to more than 200 individual buildings). In 2020, Burgas was awarded the Transformative Cities first-place honour in the Energy category.
Role in the project: Burgas municipality will be responsible for the implementation of the ComAct Pilot case in Ukraine and will be involved in all project research activities through provision of reliable data on the results of already carried all renovation projects in multifamily buildings.
Visit the website: www.burgas.bg
Odessa Housing Union association was established in 2001 by Housing Owners Associations of multi apartment buildings’ owners and building cooperatives of Odessa city. The association is a non-profit legal entity which was created with the purpose of protecting the rights and interests of the apartment buildings’ owners, in particular, to maintain and use common property in the buildings of unions of apartment buildings’ owners and building cooperatives and render housing and public utility services of proper quality and at fair tariffs; to preserve and improve operating properties of the apartment buildings; to reduce power resources consumption by tenants and optimize forms of housing stock management.
Role in the project: Odessa Housing Union association is coordinator of the ComAct Pilot case in Ukraine, provides evaluation and elaboration of the pilot results, analyze financing schemes suitable for energy poor households and adapts them to the Ukrainian Pilot context.
Visit the website: www.homeunion.odessa.ua
METROPOLITAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE (MRI) is a private research institute established in 1989 consisting of nine researchers, with Master or PhD degrees in economics, sociology, or history. MRI focuses on urban development from a social and economic point of view. It also deals with housing policy with focus on social and affordable housing. MRI undertakes research and consultancy, organizes international conferences, and designs and provides training in these areas. Research and consultancy is carried out with and for local governments, development agencies, universities and research institutions, EU institutions, and international organizations.
Role in the project: Having research experience in the field of energy poverty in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, MRI leads the generic research on energy poverty. MRI will also implement the Bulgarian pilot project located in District 3 of Budapest.
Visit the website: https://mri.hu/en/
ENOVA, established in 2008, is a leading multi-disciplinary development consulting company in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a staff of 35 full-time professionals. The largest portion of the business portfolio is with projects supported by international development and finance institutions such as the UNDP, World Bank (WB), EBRD, IFC, USAID, UNEP, UNIDO, SIDA and the European Commission.
Enova possesses excellent knowledge about the specific conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region and has already been dealing with a range of challenging environmental and development projects in the public and private domain. ENOVA has put into place a quality assurance and safeguard system in accordance with ISO 9001:2008, involving the definition of a clear set of procedures.
Enova’s services cover the whole range of thematic objectives of sustainable development for economic, social and policy cohesion through our 4 thematic divisions: Sustainable Development, Energy and Energy Efficiency, Environment and Climate Change, Policy and Governance.
Role in the project: ENOVA will provide its expertise for preparation of tailor-made financial schemes targeting low-income households living in multi-family apartment buildings. Enova is responsible for setting up and maintenance of the E-Learning Knowledge Sharing Platform on the 5 Pilot Cases.
Visit the website: https://www.enova.ba
The Housing Initiative for Eastern Europe (IWO) is an NGO bringing together private and public partners who aim at a market-oriented and ecological development of the housing and construction economy in Eastern Europe. Involving relevant stakeholders and experts from various related fields, IWO pursues an integrated approach. Coordinating their comprehensive experiences and solutions regarding business management, technology, energy and financing, IWO aims at sustainable know-how transfer and exchange. Joint activities of IWO, its members and partners shall contribute to the development and implementation of projects and programmes within the housing and building economy in Eastern European countries.
Role in the project: IWO leads and coordinates the implementation of all pilot cases and dissemination of the valuable information of the activities and reached results in the network of CEE and CIS region.
Visit the website: http://www.iwoev.org
The Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) is a not-for-profit think-tank with a focus on independent analysis and knowledge dissemination, supporting evidence-based policymaking in the field of energy performance in buildings, throughout Europe and beyond.
BPIE has a multifaceted approach to achieving efficiency improvements in buildings, and promotes policy support to further improve regulatory measures, financial incentives and market conditions that lead to the construction and retrofit of buildings with a high energy performance. The focus is on ensuring the vigorous implementation of the EU legislation linked to buildings across EU Member States, as well as to enhance financing of deep energy renovation of the existing buildings.
BPIE provides open-source research, analysis, knowledge-sharing and advisory activities to the European Institutions, policy-makers in EU Member States and neighbouring countries, the scientific community as well as private sector stakeholders and the civil society.
Role in the project: BPIE is responsible for the communication and dissemination actions. On the policy side, BPIE supports the overall research on energy poverty policies and is responsible for including multiple benefits of building renovation as an additional asset.
Visit the website: www.bpie.eu