The best EU fighters against energy poverty are known!
Bernard Mathieu was honored to review the initiatives of the 2023 edition of the European Social Innovation Competition, organized by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). During this selection process, he had the pleasure of working with the 2 other jury members: Anamaria Magri Pantea and Marta Rey-Garcia.
On 14th November the winners of this year were revealed to the public. So, congratulations to…
– No Home Without Energy (NHWE): ECODES (Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo) flagship programme to tackle energy poverty and improve the energy efficiency of Spanish low-income households.
– The city of Eeklo in Belgium: working closely with local citizen-energy cooperatives to ensure access to affordable, local, renewable energy for its citizens. Since 2000 several wind turbines were developed on public grounds of the city by the citizen-energy cooperatives Ecopower and Volterra. This way over 500 households (5% of total households) in Eeklo became members of the cooperatives in the last 20 years.
– EmpowerMed: Collective advisory assemblies (CAAs) are an innovative, flexible, impactful, ready-to-use tool applicable for addressing various forms and levels of energy poverty. CAAs take the form of sessions typically gathering 10 to 30 people and are open to anyone experiencing difficulties with access and affordability of domestic energy services. Over 300 CAAs have been organised across Europe since the methodology was initially devised in Barcelona (Spain) in 2014, and its viability has been further confirmed by the Horizon 2020 EmpowerMed project, which enabled its replication in France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Albania.
Discover concrete and inspiring initiatives from all over Europe that ensure equitable access to clean energy while enabling a decent life for every citizen.
> Read more about the winners (and also about the jury members) of the 2023 edition: https://lnkd.in/exdjQtnp
Background info:
The European Social Innovation Competition (EUSIC), funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC) under Horizon Europe, helps innovators develop their ideas into working solutions. It also facilitates a network of radical innovators shaping our society. This prize acknowledges social innovation as a powerful approach to responding to societal challenges.
