Combining Building Efficiency and District Energy for More Sustainable Cities: A Sustainable Energy for All Webinar

Energy efficiency is touted as a “low-hanging fruit” for cities to take hold of, in order to lower overall carbon emissions and achieve other economic and social benefits of sustainable development.  Indeed, energy efficiency opportunities are well understood and implemented in a variety of settings worldwide.  And yet, energy efficiency as a strategy is still underutilized. In recognition of these underutilized opportunities, the Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator Platform, established under the United Nation’s Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL), works to accelerate energy efficiency. It partners with national and subnational governments through six public-private Accelerator initiatives: appliances and equipment, buildings, district energy systems, lighting, industry, and vehicle fuel economy. 

Two inter-related areas of energy efficiency opportunity, which are of particular importance to cities, are buildings and district energy systems. This webinar will provide an introduction to the connections between buildings and district energy in developing sustainable, low carbon, and resilient cities. It will also describe the activities of the Accelerator Platform and its approach to working with local governments to improve the efficiency of buildings and district energy systems in their communities. The activities of SE4ALL partner cities will be featured. ICLEI members and other local governments are invited to learn about this initiative, the actions of current partner cities, and explore the potential benefits of their own involvement in the Building Efficiency Accelerator and the District Energy in Cities Initiative.\

This webinar of the SE4ALL Global Energy Efficiency Accelerator partnership is jointly hosted by World Resources Institute (WRI), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability.

Date: Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Time: 10:00am-11:30am CEST

Agenda: 

1. Welcome and Introduction of SE4ALL Energy Efficiency Accelerators (10 minutes)
   • Maryke van Staden, Low Carbon Cities Program Manager, ICLEI World Secretariat
   • Lily Riahi, Advisor on Sustainable Energy in Cities, Energy, Climate and Technology Branch, UNEP
2. The building efficiency and district energy relationship and opportunities for action in cities: Building Energy Accelerator and District Energy in Cities Initiative (15 minutes)
   • Ingo Wagner, Policy and Project Officer, Euroheat & Power
3. Warsaw’s building efficiency and district energy activities (20 minutes)
   • Leszek Drogosz, Director of Infrastructure Department, City of Warsaw, Poland
   • Marcin Wróblewski, Infrastructure Department, City of Warsaw, Poland
4.  Dubai’s building efficiency and district energy activities (10 minutes)
   • Samer Khoudeir, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Empower
5. Summary & call to action (5 minutes)
   • Maryke van Staden, ICLEI
6. Questions & answers (30 minutes)

Language: English

A recording of the webinar is posted here.