The sky is the limit for Poland’s air pollution crisis
28th April 2017, by Adrian Joyce, Renovate Europe Campaign Director If a European police force dispatched scent-sensitive drones across the suburbs in a last ditch bid to prevent thousands of deaths, you might think a terror attack was imminent. But the Polish police officers filmed last month surveilling residents in Zywiec were tailing a crime wave motivated by nothing more sinister than the desire to keep warm. Its effects though are clear, or rather they are smoggy. For cheap wood, coal and waste burned indoors are contributing to a smog problem in the town that sometimes surpasses even…
Energy Renovation: The double-brainer solution to Europe’s indoor air quality problem
28th April 2017, by Adrian Joyce, Renovate Europe Campaign Director Energy renovations are often labelled a “no brainer” but on the basis of new research, it might be more accurate to call them a double-brainer. In one double-blind study published last year, the cognitive performances of workers in an enhanced green building environment were found to be 101% higher than in conventional buildings. Crisis response scores were 131% better, strategy scores 288% greater and information usage scores a staggering 299% higher for employees not exposed to the sort of elevated levels of CO2 and…
France: Where energy efficiency tops the polls
France: Where energy efficiency tops the polls 20th April 2017, by Adrian Joyce, Renovate Europe Campaign Director Whoever is elected in the French elections, it seems that the building renovations industry will win. Energy renovation programmes have been a substantial feature in the manifestos of all leading presidential candidates - and in the presidential TV debates. That means French voters can choose from a range of often detailed energy efficiency programmes, in the first round of polling on April 23. But how did it happen? “The subject emerged in this campaign because we built a…
Op-ed: Energy poverty: A blight on the EU (Euractiv)
Published by Euractiv on: 6 April 2017 | For something that blights the lives of between 50 and 125 million European citizens it is strange to discover that there is no EU-wide definition of ‘energy poverty’, writes Adrian Joyce.
Making it Real – Site to Renovated House with Energy Attachés
The Renovate Europe office organised a site visit for Energy Attachés to the Renovactive house in Anderlecht on Wednesday 29th March. The RenovActive house is a demonstration project of VELUX, a partner of the Renovate Europe Campaign. A typical 1920s house in the Brussels suburb was fully renovated with the double aim of significantly reducing energy consumption but also of improving the daylight and fresh air for future inhabitants. The fact that the house is part of a social housing estate meant that costs had to be kept within a restricted budget, in cooperation with the local social…
Interview about the Dutch National Elections 2017
Interview about the Dutch National Elections 2017 Interview with the Renovate Europe Dutch National Partner - the National Renovation Platform How did energy renovation feature in the Dutch national elections? Strangely enough there was all but no attention towards energy-efficiency and climate in the weeks and days before the elections. Could it be, that the political leaders thought, that that was of no interest to the Dutch voters? Or could it be that they wanted to avoid the subject, due to the huge financial impact it's going to have in the coming years? The latter seems to be more…