Minutes of the Meeting in La Walck

Minutes of the meeting in La Walck

October 2011

by ENTP

Participants

- Corentin Lefèvre, ABE

- Philippe Taillard, ABE

- Catherine Ledig, ADEC

- Arnaud Kehren, ADEC

- Alison Garnier-Rivers, ADEC

- Emmanuel Jacquet, ADEC

- Andrew Osborne, Ashford Borough Council

- Stephanie Karpetas, Ashford Borough Council

- Hervé-Jacques Poskin, Cluster Wallon Ecoconstruction

- Colette Balsacq, Cluster Wallon Ecoconstruction

- Áine McCarthy, Codema

- Joe Hayden, Codema

- Leïla Kebir, EIVP

- Morgane Colombert, EIVP

- Anne-Claire Bellec, EIVP

- Arshad Rab, ETECH

- Charlotte Dessandier, SAN de MLV-VM

- Stéphanie Ursulet, SAN de MLV-VM

- Benjamin Finot, SAN de MLV-VM

- Monika Szulta, SAN de MLV-VM

- Rachel Nicholson, Stoke-on-Trent

- Nigel Barret, Stoke-on-Trent

- Jan Kragt, Gemeente Zoetermeer

- Marcel Keijzer, Gemeente Zoetermeer

- Henk Franken, Gemeente Zoetermeer

- Benno, Gemeente Zoetermeer

- Edoardo Guglielmetti, ENTP

Monday the 10th, morning session

Welcome by ADEC

Catherine Ledig welcomed the participants and gave a short presentation of the Bas-Rhin context where ADEC cluster is operating. ADEC is linked to the Conseil Général du Bas-Rhin (Department elected council) and it gathers 45 SMEs companies. The percentage of SMEs failure on the territory is 8%. 600 new jobs were created recently, while shoes’ companies, once the majority, are decreasing. Geothermal export is emerging. A new trend among local SMEs is the link to EU and EU project. ADEC also works closely with local universities.

Updates from lead partner

The SAN of Marne-la-Vallée Val Maubuée informed the partners that the request for change was approved by the Interreg Programme. Birmingham Chamber of Commerce has been replaced by Stoke-on-Tent council, while Ashford Future has been replaced by Ashford Borough Council. Changes included the budget shift and the revised partnership agreement. Participants were also informed that the Greenov Brand is about to be officially registered (a Greenov brand already exists but a deal has been agreed with the previous registering owner).

Roundtable of project implementation’s progress

BEA has worked on the experts’ list and on the mapping (completed). They’ve also worked on their cluster portal and on a joint event with EEN in September. They’re still waiting from news on the finding of the renovation project.

ADEC informed that the outputs on indicators will be disseminated soon. They’ve worked on Action 6 and have almost finalised their chapter. They also started collaboration with the Energy efficiency cluster and with an architecture school on “resilience énergétique” / energy resilience.

Codema has been active on Action 6, defining the work on the study and its chapter structure, and on WP2 Action 13, together with Dublin Chamber of Commerce, to investigate what SMEs would need and how they would benefit from Greenov through a survey with 10 questions on transnational procurements and training. On Action 10, interviews are underway.

Zoetermeer announced that interviews of local SMEs will start at the end of the month. For the market analysis (as a part of the final study), two students will be employed for half a year, full time. They are also identifying the members of the companies to be involved in the cluster (a number of meetings on this will follow).

Their renovation project is on schedule: work will start in 2013, while public tenders will be published on 2012.

Ecoconstruction Cluster Wallonia worked on a list of experts for the cluster as well as on Action 6 with interviews of SMEs, in particular enterprises working on cellulose. They were also active on the information sector with a “chantier – école” (1 week training on techniques for earth & straw).

EIVP announced the arrival of 2 new members in their team: Morgane Colombert, engineer, and Anne-Claire Bellec, administrator. They’re working on interviews’ analysis. They are also working on understanding the production system of renovation and organising the contest and prize on sustainable renovation. For this, they carried out a review of the internet watch about the existing prizes. To contribute to the book with one chapter, they also did a review of the isolation techniques.

SAN of Marne-la-Vallée – Val-Maubuée has been interviewing the local companies (one/two interviews per month or more). They’ve established a local network and organised meetings with them. They had a GREENOV stand in a professional fair ‘Building 360”. On WP1, they’ve designed a template used to identify international experts and a work they’ve done. It is an alternative form of template for experts’ identification in Action 1, on the model of a report of a meeting with an expert. It is a good tool for dissemination, they’ve entitled it “From the Greenov’ desk”.

The representatives of Stoke-on-Trent council, Rachel Nicholson & Nigel Barret, introduced the new Greenov partner to their colleagues. The city has 240.000 inhabitants and is located 30 minutes from Manchester and from Birmingham.

5000 companies are VAT registered locally, most of them from ceramic industry (300 companies) and mining (steel & coal). City council counts 8.000 employees and the priority of the year for the city is to support the building sector and related business, also to be in line with national priorities. In fact, according to official surveys, UK has the oldest housing stock of the developed world; and the UK government committed to reduce CO2 emissions by 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. As a consequence, 80.000 households must be refurbished in West Midlands by 2016 (1M in UK by 2016; 22M by 2050). Most of these houses are built before 1990, with no foundation and with single layer walls. 8 properties should be refurbished every 5 seconds according to the UK government!

Stoke was already involved in related projects:

1. Build Up North Staffordshire http://www.buildup-ns.org.uk/index.htmcore project

2. CoRe project http://www.core-skills.com/, a UK centre of Refurbishment excellence linked to a learning platform.

Stoke council is aware that the main problem is the lack of skills for retrofitting. They highlighted the importance of their BREAM excellence building, which is expected to attract 2.000 visitors.

Ashford Borough Council representatives, Andrew Osborne and Stephanie Karpetas, also introduced themselves and their city context and level of political competence: while the county is on charge of education and other social related policies, the Borough council takes care of the urban and rural planning. The wider Ashford area counts 11440.000 inhabitants with 70,000 within the town and is located 37 minutes from London and 20 minutes from Dover. It hosts a Eurostar station. It is a fast growing centre and has had targets to it’s expected to double in size.

They explained that Ashford Future was a limited company set up by several partners:

- City Council

- County Council

- Regional Development Agency

- Homes & Community agency

When the funds necessary to Ashford’s Future were cut by the new government, the responsibility for the Greenov project was transferred came back to the Council.

Ashford Future dealt with projects for 5015 M funds in last 3 years and undertook investments to enable a target ofconcerning 20.000 homes and 17,000 jobs./30.000 homes.

In the Greenov project, Ashford is participating with two pilot investments, namely

St. Mary Church (addition of a system for rain water harvesting, ground source heat pump, renovation of lighting), and Gateway Library Plus Library (with a significant campaign on public awareness).

They are dealing with 2 reviews on their local context: a demand analysis though interviews, leading to the design & delivery of a support programme, and a work on the procurement side / public tendering.

ETECH explained how they are working on action 9. Mr. Rab presented to the participants an innovative solution, recently produced and tested, for a sustainable heating system. It is a solar-powered system to heat fresh air coming from outside. It was designed to prevent health risks due to lack of ventilation.

This solution has several possible applications: heating, hot water, ventilation, de-humidification, drying

Among the advantages, it is cost saving, healthy, and environmental friendly; it can work round the year (with sunlight), helps preserving the property value (no moisture), and has no risks (no leaks possible).

7/8 years are needed for the payback (oil costs), and it has an average life of 20/25 years. The challenge now is to make it “economical”, for instance increasing public awareness and organising training.

Freiburg University Hospital has already installed it and it gets subsidies in Germany.

Zoetermeer explained how they are working on Action 5

They are using the cross-tech innovation methodology in the framework of their investment project of renovation, for the preliminary studies’ phase.

1. Blender process know-how experience

wealth of ideas

imagine

(broad the horizon)

à 1st session of workshops (in November)

Know-how / experience – wealth of ideas – imagine (broad the horizon)

1st atelier session with 20 participants (next month)

2. Phase: first filter

ideas

workable solutions

(what might work)

3. Phase: think à choose

workable

solutions

(coherent sets of effective

measures for tendering)

The owner (municipality) together with the market will define the specifications for the tendering process. These will not only taking into account carbon emission but also other parameters of environmental impact (for instance, chlorine).

This process will follow the agenda here below:

· Blender: November 2011

· Filter 1: January 2012

· Filter 2: April 2012

· Specifications: June 2012

· Public tender: September 2012

· Renovation: starting 2013

Some questions were raised: who has the ownership of the open innovation? Is the process focused on the swimming pool? When the pricing comes into the process? What about virtual prototypes? Is this respectful of competition law?

The issue of the ownership has been discussed, and while some partners think it is important to establish rules of property rights in advance, others are less convinced on the need of such a rule. Zoetermeer also explained that this process will involved several actors and that everybody has to test it, not only Zoetermeer.

It has however been pointed out that there is a need to refine the appropriate terminology around innovation and the Action 5 scope. For instance, a Business Technology Accelerator (upstream level) is not usually intended as a structure to put innovation in the market (downstream level). In order to match prototypes and companies, an infrastructure is needed that will manage, among others, the choice of capable companies, but will not talk about “innovation”. The role of Business Angels should be also taken into consideration in this process.

It should not also be forgotten that building companies do not have the habit of open source and knowledge-sharing methods.

At EU level, the IPRU helpdesk could be of help.

è This issue could be discussed in common with actions 8 and 12 also dealing with innovation. Lead Partner to organise a dedicated meeting about the Innovation in Greenov for a workgroup including Zoetermeer, Stoke on Trent and BEA.

Monday the 10th, afternoon session

Workshop on Action 4: study visit to Freiburg & next partner meeting

Participants have been informed of next relevant fairs and are invited to attend to represent the Greenov project. Next highlighted events are:

· Bois et Habitat, 23 (Friday) to 26 March (Monday) 2012 in Namur www.bois-habitat.com

· The Energy Show - Energy Conservation Fair, in Dublin, 28-29 March (dates to be confirmed)

· Ecobuild fair in London organised by EEN, 20 to 22 March 2012 www.ecobuild.co.uk.

Greenov project foresees, according to the action plan, one study visit to Freiburg. This activity was included because the city is probably the most advanced in Europe for sustainable policies, it is the solar capital of Europe and host the seat, among other, of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Solare Energiesysteme ISE www.ise.fraunhofer.de and of ICLEI www.iclei.org.

One idea for the visit is to see how the transformation is taking place rather than one single project, as well as to highlight the strong linkages with renovation sector. Official presentations from Freiburg will also be considered.

ETECH also proposed alternative candidates to host the visit: the city of Ludwigsburg, which is already partner of an Interreg project on indicators (www.livinggreen.eu); and Karlsruhe, more appropriate for policy-oriented visits, with possible sessions for elected representatives, and the presentation of “Smart Karlsruhe” including mobility and green economy.

Karlsruhe is however already hosting on Greenov event, i.e. next partner meeting on the 16th and 17th of February. ETECH is proposing, for that meeting, a “conference” format. This could fulfil the Greenov project action plain that requires the organisation of one thematic conference and dissemination event on sustainable renovation.

The event in Karlsruhe aims at providing the project partners with an external view on the topic reframing a global picture.

The main title could be “European Conference on Green Renovation” / on sustainable building / on sustainable renovation (to define). Each partner could bring experts, enterprises, and elected representatives.

One option proposed by ETECH is that the opening is done by. Winfried Kretschmann, (Ministerpräsident of the state of Baden-Württemberg), the first Green Prime Minister in Germany, or by Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Energy. A session should be dedicated to business networking, where exchanges should take place formally with SMEs.

Regular partnership meeting would take place on Thursday from 5 pm to 7 pm.

A conference brochure should be prepared in November 2011.

The question of the audience profile was raised: some participants do not consider that SMEs are interested in the same kind of events as the elected representatives. The two audience could be distinguished in two different events (for example, the study visit in Freiburg could be more techniques-oriented). Also the language could be a problem as many French-speaking experts are not able to attend an English-only debate. The partner in charge of the event has therefore been invited to consider the cost of simultaneous interpretation when preparing the conference budget.