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European Commission Concerto funded Ecostiler

Households and schools alone contribute to nearly one third of UK's CO2 emissions. Older constructions, particularly those built before the ‘Building Act 1984', generally have poor energy performance. The EU project Ecostiler is currently trying to deal with these inefficiencies by retrofitting and installing on-site energy generation on a range of constructions in Europe. The project's goal is to reduce the buildings' carbon footprints, fight fuel-poverty and raise awareness to climate change.

In the pursuit of helping groups in delicate financial situations reduce their heating bills, Lambeth Council chose two social housing estates and six schools to be part of this ambitious project. A key deliverable of Carbon Descent's as project managers is the production of a socio-economic analysis to assess the impacts of the project.

These work packages were designed to monitor and evaluate the following impacts of the installed measures; energy efficiency, residents' perception of changes in well-being, health and awareness of the relationship between energy and climate change.

In consultation with Lambeth Council we designed the monitoring and evaluation process which ensures that the qualitative and quantitative project data will be comparable with other socio-economic data used for official EU statistics. This also includes the choice of research methods, such as door step surveys and working with focus groups. The data will be collected throughout the project and ultimately compared with the different constructions in Lambeth as well as the other projects in Europe.

The success of our report will be measured by the amount of data we were able to collect and analyse effectively. Another very important aspect will be our ability to detect, interpret and compare the intangible impacts of the project such as health and the focus groups' awareness and understanding of the relationship between energy, the environment and climate change. As the project also tries to uncover the effects of different forms of energy efficiency advice approaches an easy comparison between the attendees' perceptions will have to be made on a local as well as European level.

Ecostiler has the following work packages:

  • Project management
  • Socio-economic analysis
  • Training
  • Eco-refrubishment
  • Polygeneration
  • Renewables

 

Upcoming Ecostiler events

As part of Ecostiler we are running the following events. If you are interested in attending any of threse please get in contact:

  • Building Greener Communities - an integrated approach to a sustainable future. 27-28th May 2010. Target audience: local authority officers, real estate developers, climate alliance partners, residents, housing cooperations, energy center managers. Topics will include: Regulatory framework barriers - and how to overcome them, User and consumer involvement and Planning and implementation. Download the flyer here. To register visit: www.ecostiler.com or email: mtks@ramboll.dk
  • Workshops for professionals. Target audience: Building professionals, developers, engineers, social housing practitioners.  24th March at Islington Ecology Centre. To register visit: www.beyonddecenthomes.org.uk/Event-Registration-Form.php, email info@carbondescent.org.uk or call 020 7089 6970