Events

2 December 14:15-16:30 as part of the Right to Energy Forum – Atelier 29, Rue Jacques de Lalaing 29, 1000 Brussels 

You missed the session? Watch the replay (starting at 04:04:00) 🎥here on the Friends of the Earth Europe Youtube.🎥

🖼️ Check out the presentation Right To Energy Right to Health

🖼️ Check out the photo gallery of the event

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On 2 December from 14h15-16:30, we organised an insightful policy event in Brussels that explores the critical intersection of energy poverty and public health.  

As high energy costs and poor housing conditions continue to affect vulnerable populations, understanding the health implications becomes increasingly urgent. This afternoon event will be twofold: 

• EU Policy impact: outlook on health and energy priorities  

Why is health rarely taken into account when discussing energy poverty issues and measures? Representatives from EU institutions will discuss the current and future priorities needed at the EU policy level to address energy poverty and its health impacts. We will dig into the unexplored areas or blind spots policymakers should consider to shape a more equitable energy landscape across Europe. 

🎤 Confirmed speakers:
Dr. Maria Neira, Director of Environment, Climate Change & Health, World Health Organisation WHO (remotely)
Tomas de Jong, Policy Manager, European Public Health Alliance EPHA

Mathilde Leyge, Policy Officer, EU Commission DG ENER, unit for consumers, local initiatives and just transition
Dr. João Pedro Gouveia, Coordination team of EU Energy Poverty Advisory Hub; Principal Researcher at CENSE, NOVA-FCT, Portugal

•  Urban programmes integrating health for effective energy poverty policies  

Unpaid bills, cold homes, feelings of stress, shame and depression: energy poverty has many ugly faces. And it’s in cities and regions that they become visible. Regional and city practitioners will share lessons learned from working with people suffering from it. They will highlight innovative approaches and effective strategies that empower communities to combat energy poverty, enhance health and wellbeing. 

🎤 Confirmed speakers:

Alejandro López Parejo, Getafe municipality (Spain), and cordinator of the project EPIU Getafe  Healthy Homes  
Lorine Gagliolo, Vice-President energy transition, Metropolis and City of Besançon (France)
VICTORIA Pellicer Sifres Valencia Clima i Energia (Spain)

Elena Rocher Vicedo, R+D+i technician, Valencia Innovation Capital  
Dr. Lucie Middlemiss, Professor of Environment and Society, University of Leeds

Panelists and audience will share solutions that ensure every resident has access to affordable, safe, and sustainable energy, fostering healthier lives and thriving communities. 

This session is for forward-thinking energy poverty and health experts, advocates and policymakers. It is part of the 2024 Right To Energy Forum and is organised by the WELLBASED project team. 

3rd Capacity-building Webinar for cities caring for energy justice

18 November 2024 (CET), 10:30 – 12:00 AM

online on ZOOM

🔗Register here

Why this workshop?

The EU, national and regional governments begin to recognise the importance of fighting energy poverty, a large amount of resources are allocated through various EU instruments and new actions are being launched across Europe. However, due to the complexity of energy poverty, it is not easy to find the most effective solution.

In our Webinar, the audience can gain insight into the latest trends, experiences and dilemmas in financial instruments, and learn about two innovative solutions that can help fight energy poverty in different but effective ways.

Expected outputs

This event is mainly for policy influencers and local stakeholders wanting to propose services that benefit the most vulnerable and cities wanting to design exit energy poverty strategies. They can learn from existing experiences, ask questions and find interesting contacts. Also, the evidence-based recommendations shared by the speakers from their ground and research work in the field of financial models can be useful inputs for public authorities who will engage in mid- and long-term measures on energy justice.

The webinar “Evolving from Open Data to Artificial Intelligence Challenge for Municipalities” will be on the 14^th of November, from 10.00 to 12.30 CET.

🔗Register now here

It aims at giving valuable inputs about the creation of public data spaces in the current EU technological and legal context, thanks to various outstanding speakers.

It is organised by Universidad de Valencia, from WELLBASED project, within WG3 group of the UHC Cluster.

🔗 See full programme and speaker details: UHC_WG3 Webinar_briefing

The workshop was organized by the WELLBASED Edirne Pilot team leader Demir Enerji, Representatives from pilot cities involved in each project joined the session, sharing key takeaways and success stories from their ongoing initiatives. This interactive workshop allowed participants to explore potential strategies for scaling up their health and well-being actions, facilitated through a collaborative Solution Catalog exercise. The exchange emphasized practical lessons and challenges in pilot cities, highlighting innovative approaches within UHC projects.

>> You can read the summary on the Urban Health Cluster website.

You missed the WELLBASED “Health” session during Day 2 of the Annual Conference of Energy Poverty Advisory Hub happening on 15-16 October 2024 in Barcelona?

Click here to get a glimpse of session through the presentation

The WELLBASED colleagues gave insights into data collection from our 6 pilots and launched discussions on how to provide a healthy and comfortable living environment for everyone!

More about what happened can be found on the EPAH website. 

✅Watch the recording (online soon)

Energy poverty and the associated problems can represent a heavy burden to public spending!

We need to find ways not only to optimize the way money flows into actions that help fighting energy poverty and ill health – but also ways to avoid expenditures due to clever, anticipated measures. Like with climate crisis, the cost of non-action might be higher than the money we put early enough, i.e. investing in prevention rather than paying the damages.

So, but which money? And in which financing form? How can public and private money be used? What data is needed to direct it towards the right action?

We were delighted to have 2 great speakers on exactly that topic: They are both involved in a preliminary study we undertook within the WELLBASED project to assess the feasibility of those two financing mechanisms.

Download presentations:

• 📁 Urban Financial Mechanism – Joram Nauta, Business Analyst from TNO
• 📁 Social Impact Bonds – Rebeca Lucas, Senior R&D&I Consultant and Social Science Researcher at KVeloce

The Q&A session with participants focused on:

• Reactions to the presented instruments: how welcome is private funding for social services? How can money streams be assessed? How do both mechanisms complement each other?

• Capital providers and data needed to improve the funding of EP interventions reducing ill-health

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2nd Capacity-building webinar for cities caring for energy justice 

✅Watch the recording

An event packed with data and very personal stories about energy poverty and ill-health 

View presentations:

• 📁 Insights into first findings from WELLBASED pilot sites, Amy van Grieken, assistant professor, Erasmus University Medical Center 
• 📁 How do people experience energy poverty? First results of the analysis of the qualitative data from Leeds, Pepa Ambrosio Albala, University of Leeds 
• 📁 Leaving no one behind: personalised support to energy poor – A pilot presentation from Valencia, Pilar Jordà Artigas,Valencia Clima i Energia 
• 📁 Suggestions regarding health-proof energy poverty policies at the local level, Miriam Eisermann, Energy Cities

Why this workshop? 

In September, the WELLBASED team released🔗the first findings of its small-scale research on energy poverty and health. It was carried out between October 2022 till April 2023. It shows that low-income households were not comfortably warm in their homes during the past winter and suffered from bad health. This is of particular concern as all five countries covered by the survey introduced emergency measures for the most vulnerable including regulated tariffs and energy vouchers or grants for home energy retrofits.  

We want this webinar to be a space for dialogue around those very recent figures and stories.  Is Europe prepared for the coming winter, and what lessons and solutions can help European cities to be more resilient to the challenges of rising energy prices?  

Expected outputs 

This event is mainly for policy influencers and local stakeholders wanting to propose services that benefit the most vulnerable and cities wanting to design exit energy poverty strategies. They can learn from existing experiences, ask questions and find interesting contacts. Also, the evidence-based recommendations shared by the speakers from their ground and research work during last winter can be useful inputs for public authorities who will engage in mid- and long-term measures on energy justice. 

MORE ABOUT WELLBASED: https://wellbased.eu/what-is-wellbased/

Are you involved in #health and #wellbeing or want to learn how others are working on that topic in the urban context? Join us in Bologna on 8 June ! The European Health Cluster, a grouping of 6 EU-funded projects will meet on June 8 and 9 in this beautfiful Italian city for the Annual Cluster Meeting. Day 1 will be open to everybody.  

See the draft agenda here.

Register now.

Wednesday 10 May 2023 – 10-11:30 am (CET), 9-10:30 am (GMT) 

online on ZOOM 

******REGISTER here****** 

Capacity-building for cities caring for energy justice 

Short-term alleviation measures to energy poverty don’t go far enough. Structural empowerment by improving not only the homes, but also the health of vulnerable people is needed. A whole new urban program focusing on this energy poverty-health nexus needs to be invented by cities across Europe. 

During this session, city experts involved in the WELLBASED project will share initial findings from their research in cities that want to tackle energy poverty and health. This includes insights into people’s daily lives this past winter, and the consequences for their health. Building such an understanding of experiences of energy poverty is a crucial step towards better policy-making and effective local support schemes.  

Expected outputs 

This event is mainly for policy influencers and local stakeholders wanting to propose services that benefit the most vulnerable and cities wanting to design exit energy poverty strategies. They can learn from existing experiences, ask questions and find interesting contacts. Also, the evidence-based recommendations shared by the speakers from their ground and research work during last winter can be useful inputs for public authorities who will engage in mid- and long-term measures on energy justice. 

Growing Our Global Community. Driving Action. Ensuring Equity.

The theme for ICUH 2022 is Growing Our Global Community. Driving Action. Ensuring Equity. During this year’s conference, we aim to connect all global stakeholders working within the urban health realm to drive action and ensure equity across cities and regions. We will explore how urban health can connect with other urban and global agendas, such as climate change, planetary health and sustainable development. We will explore models for engagement and empowerment, prioritizing and defining equity across communities, how biodiversity and natural elements can play a role in healthy urban futures, and ways to reduce climate impacts for all.  

ICUH 2022 will take place in-person and will also offer select sessions virtually. The program will include more practice-oriented discussions, workshops, special exhibitions and site visits to local projects. Our two venues, the Botanical Gardens and La Petxina Cultural-Sporting Center, offer innovative and inspiring environments for the conference events.  

Event page and registration

Local authorities play a key role in creating a supportive framework for tackling energy poverty at the local level. Upon signing the Covenant of Mayors initiative, European municipalities commit to tackling energy poverty as one key action to ensure a just transition. The Covenant of Mayors Office Europe – in collaboration with the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH) – provides guidance to signatories on how they can alleviate energy poverty at the local level and help them reach their energy poverty goals.

This webinar will present the energy poverty pillar of the Covenant of Mayors in Europe and describe the support available for CoM signatories for diagnosing, planning and implementing and monitoring and reporting actions to tackle energy poverty. It will feature two examples from EU signatories to explore how energy poverty is addressed on the ground. Participants will be invited to discuss concrete challenges and possible solutions.

Objectives of the webinar:

• Present the energy poverty pillar of the CoM-Europe reporting framework
• Present the support available to CoM signatories
• Show different approaches implemented by cities

REGISTER

Our 2nd Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (EPAH) international conference will take place on 28-29 June 2022 in Zagreb under the theme “Moving towards energy autonomy: How to guarantee social inclusion”.

During the conference, EPAH and partners will bring together local governments, EU representatives, policymakers, energy agencies, civil society organisations and all stakeholders active in energy poverty. The agenda will include a mix of keynote speeches, debates, interactive workshops and field visits that will allow the participants to debate, learn from each other and share practices as to how the EU, national and local actors can work together to contribute to the rapid energy transition and reduce energy poverty for all including energy-poor and vulnerable consumers.

The two-day event will be open to everyone interested in attending in Zagreb. Some sessions will be broadcasted online. A registration form and the detailed agenda will be available on the website soon. Stay tuned for more information.

The conference is co-hosted by EPAH, the city of Zagreb and DOOR, the civil society organisation devoted to the promotion of sustainable energy development.

REGISTER

AGENDA

How to create programs that improve health and eliminate energy poverty – 30 March from 11 to 12:30 CET

This year, WELLBASED is an official host of the Nature of Cities Festival. We are organising together with URBANOME this exciting session exploring what we can do better to tackle energy poverty and health questions in our cities.

What are the challenges and successful approaches to design programs that improve health, wellbeing and equality for people affected by energy poverty? Learn how to develop new innovative health-focused approaches to alleviate energy poverty amongst the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, while promoting energy-efficient behaviours and reducing energy demand in those households. Based on the experiences from cities and their academic and non-profit partners, we also want to hear your own ideas for a massive, EU-wide deployment of solutions by policymakers and city practitioners.

11-11:05  Welcome and intro

11:05-11:25  How unhealthy is energy poverty?

We will discuss what type of health issues are prevalent in our cities and also which ones are caused by energy poverty. We will share concrete examples from cities and affected people.

11:25-11:55 Data mining for energy poverty: how to get health data without ‘exploiting’ vulnerable people?

The work on health and energy poverty remains a real gap. This is also due to the difficulty in getting data. In this part, speakers and participants will share experiences with study interventions in vulnerable households, but also elaborate on how big data will be leveraged to evaluate health factors impacting urban wellbeing.

11:55-12:25 What solutions to alleviating health injustices in our cities?

Let’s put the spotlight on individual, community and macro-political support to provide good health and wellbeing in cities, especially to the weakest members of the population.

Q&A with audience

12:25-12:30 Wrap-up

REGISTER NOW: https://tnocfestival2022.sched.com/event/xsok (for free entrance, please send an email to Miriam: https://energy-cities.eu/staff/m-eisermann/).

Our Speakers

• Joao Pedro Gouveia – CENSE, NOVA University of Lisbon; EPAH Energy Poverty Advisory Hub (and WELLBASED Advisory Board Expert)
• William Baker– Catapult Energy Systems

• Merel Stevens– Erasmus Medical School
• Melda Karademir – Edirne City Council (WELLBASED project)

• Anna Jensen – Aarhus University
• Fien Vandebeke– City of Eeklo/Belgium (POWERUp project)
• Morten Rask Madsen – Gladsaxe Kommune/ Denmark (EUPolis Project)
• Prof Richard Laing– Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen

Our Moderators

• Miriam Eisermann– Energy Cities
• Vassilis Voulgarakis– Vilabs
• Jaideep Visave– Institute of Advanced Studies, Pavia

The Nature of Cities festival is an online event that will take place from 29 to 31 March 2022 across different regional time zones and in different languages. Through transdisciplinary dialogues, workshops and arts, the festival wants to discuss possible solutions to imagine and create cities that are better for people and nature alike.

26/01/2022 (Wednesday)

16:00-17:30

>>> REGISTER HERE

Across Europe, citizens are working together to create an energy system that puts people and the planet first. Not just as passive consumers, but as changemakers and active participants. Community energy initiatives can be an important step towards a just and inclusive energy transition. This session, co-organised by the UHC Member WELLBASED project, will showcase first-hand experiences of energy solidarity collectives tackling energy poverty across Europe.

Speakers

26/10/2021 (Tuesday)
10:30 – 11:30

Victoria Pellicer
Tackling Energy Poverty: public policies and interventions in Europe

Online
Register

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with the connection link and password to join the meeting.