27/06/2024
A growing European movement for a community-driven energy transition
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With colder weather approaching and the need to turn on our heating, we began to look at our buildings as a refuge against lower temperatures, a way to reduce emissions and be energy-independent. Across Europe, citizens are leading the transition to fossil-free and insulated homes, becoming architects of their own energy future.
Our Buildings Programme has worked with communications agency ParalleloZero to document the story of people who are at the centre of the transition to energy-efficient, decarbonised buildings in Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Italy, and Spain. We surveyed our network of partners to select iconic, citizen-driven cases of building decarbonisation across Europe and connected photojournalists with contacts on the ground. As a result of this work, over 500 photos capture how people are benefitting from better homes and more sustainable communities, buildings and cities.
Sweden: Greening the Royal Sea Port of Stockholm
Thanks to the connection made by our partner Energy Cities, in Sweden we were able to document the transformation of Stockholm’s Royal Sea Port, including its gasworks site, into a sustainable neighbourhood. The city of Stockholm decided to invest €2.2 billion in building all the necessary infrastructure and to lease construction licenses to developers who respected its sustainability standards. As a result, we see new homes with photovoltaic panels on the outside walls, windows made of transparent PV panels, and energy being sourced from heat pumps that use purified wastewater as the energy source. Today, this area is becoming one of Europe’s largest green urban agglomerations. Read more.
Ireland: A benchmark for energy efficiency
Through vivid green landscapes, the reportage in Ireland focuses on the story of Tipperary, one of the country’s most traditional rural counties. Here, citizens have begun to take charge of their own energy management through the Energy Communities Tipperary Cooperative (ECTC), a member of our partner organisation REScoop. The photos show how innovation and a better understanding and use of energy can have a positive impact on the lives of families and rural communities. Read more.
“The program not only underlines the importance of individual behaviour, and that clever use of energy can make a big impact, but it also directly involves families in energy saving activities and in reducing ‘energy guzzler’ appliances, transferring what has been learned to the whole village”
Deirdre O Brolchain, Energy Saving Officer, about the Energy Saving Workshops for Primary Schools: energy awareness program for students at the local school of Upperchurch, promoted by ECTC since 2022.
Italy: Increasing industry competitiveness with sustainable solutions
Entrepreneurs driving innovation and job creation in the buildings sector are the focus of the reportage in Italy. Photographs depict enterprises such as It also showcases how many villages’ historic centres are experimenting with forms of energy efficiency while respecting cultural heritage and protecting landscapes. Read more.
Poland: Transitioning from coal-dependency to renewable energy efficiency
Together with our partner Forum Energii, in Poland we engaged with resident associations from thousands of Soviet-era prefabricated apartment buildings and learned from their environmentally sustainable conversion choices, such as the uptake of heat pumps. These bottom-up needs were triggered by the desire to improve living conditions and comfort in their homes while reducing their energy and heating costs. Read more.
Spain: Presenting the capital’s first-ever collective green housing
In Spain, the story looks at Madrid’s first non-speculative model of collective ownership: Las Carolinas Entrepatios project Through pictures of its residents’ daily routines, we can see an energy-efficient building with 100% renewable sources, zero carbon emissions, and a strong co-housing and ecological value. The initiative involves 17 family units in the Entrepatios cooperative who shared the entire process from conception to implementation of the project. Read more.
“This project is an example of architecture serving people, constructing not just a building, but a community of neighbours. It’s a dream come true. While we each have our own private spaces, here we try to live not in a house but in an open and collaborative community.”
Iñaki Alonso, resident, one of the pioneers of the initiative and one of the architects who designed the building
Through a carefully curated selection, the project portrays five different realities of the green transition of the building sector that were later featured in numerous national and international media outlets, reaching a worldwide audience. The stories appeared on the pages of major publications such as La Repubblica, We Demain, The Big Issue, Rhythms Monthly, Travel Globe, and Vi Menn Magazine.
This reach was the result of an overall communications effort aiming to share positive stories about the transition, to demonstrate the choices people can make to help accelerate the ecological transition against the false perception that the buildings transition is a burden on people.
Furthermore, some of these stories have been positively recognised, triggering further action and attention. The ECTC in Ireland has become an accelerator of energy-efficient interventions, attracting the attention of other neighbouring areas. Thanks to the work undertaken in Poland, residents in interviewed neighbourhoods produce all the heat and electricity they need without fear of higher household bills. And the Spanish Entrepatios was recognised with the Low Carbon Prize in the 2020-2021 Green Solutions Awards and the 2019 European Collaborative Housing Award.
Next steps
The photojournalism project with ParalleloZero together with a variety of ECF partners builds on our efforts to secure robust EU buildings policies at the European level, which has now found a renewed opportunity with the next Commission.
In her address to the European Parliament in July, Ursula von der Leyden said housing would be a priority issue for the next Commission. The vow to free up cash for affordable homes and create the bloc’s first-ever housing commissioner means the need for affordable, energy-efficient and fossil-free homes is now a key priority. We’re now working to make sure countries translate this EU ambition into real, concrete action.