The sun shined on SOLE's success stories at the project's final event in Florence
The SOLE project has many success stories to tell and its final event was a way to share them with policy makers and stakeholders at regional, national and Mediterranean level to facilitate the mainstreaming of the project’s key lessons and build the energy-efficient public building of tomorrow on solid foundations.
76 participants (of whom only 4 online) from 40 different organisations attended SOLE's final event which took place in Florence on Sept.14th 2023 at the Fondazione CR's Innovation Centre.
The event was attended by Programme ENI CBC MED’s Joint Technical Secretariat (JTS) online and by Fadi Karam, Senior expert in Environment and Climate Change, who supported the project partnership throughout SOLE's implementation.
At Tuscan regional level, the event was attended by lead partner Anci Toscana (the Regional Association of Tuscan Municipalities), associated partner Region of Tuscany, partner ARRR (Tuscany's Regional Resource Recovery Agency), partner Municipality of Prato together with other 5 Tuscan Municipalities (Casole d'Elsa, Firenze, Livorno, Montalcino and Vaiano), the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape Metropolitan City of Florence and of the Provinces of Pistoia and Prato, Agenzia del Demanio Toscana e Umbria (the State Property Agency of Tuscany and Umbria), ANCE Toscana (the regional branch of the Italian Association of private construction contractors), CET (Tuscany's Energy Consortium Company), BCC (the Tuscan Federation of Cooperative Credit Banks), Confcooperative Toscana, cooperatives IRECOOP and Sud Concept, the University of Pisa and consulting company Resolvo.
At national level, the National Agency for new technologies and sustainable development (ENEA), another sustainable development agency from Emilia-Romagna (AESS), Energy Services Manager GSE, Green Building Council Italy, the Ministry of Education (MIUR), Confcooperative and Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini participated to the conference.
At Mediterranean level, from Egypt, it was attended by project partners Alexandria Chamber of Commerce (ACC) and Confederation of Egyptian European Business Associations (CEEBA), the University of Cairo and the Ministry for International Cooperation of Egypt represented by Sherihan Bekhiet; from Jordan, by partner Royal Scientific Society (RSS); from Tunisia, by partner FNCT (National Federation of Tunisian Municipalities) and consulting company Blue Fish; from Lebanon, by partner Municipality of Jounieh; from Spain, by partner Andalusian Energy Agency (AEE); from Greece, by partner NTUA (National Technical University of Athens) which participated online.
The event was also attended by communication companies RTV 38, Toscana Eventi and FLOD.
The conference was opened by Anci Toscana's President Matteo Biffoni, Councillor for the Environment of the Region of Tuscany Monia Monni and Assistant Minister for International Cooperation of Egypt Sherihan Bekhiet, who were introduced by Elena Conti, Head of the European Projects’ Unit of Anci Toscana: through their institutional greetings, they all advocated for a better and more efficient collaboration among institutions and stakeholders to achieve the climate goals for 2030 and 2050.
From the left: Gabriele Gori (Director of Fondazione CR Firenze), Matteo Biffoni (President of Anci Toscana) and Elena Conti (Head of the European Projects' Unit of Anci Toscana)
PhD Mohamed Salah Elsobki from Cairo University then introduced the topic of energy efficiency of public buildings in the Mediterranean from a technical and social point of view his interesting keynote speech.
From the left: Fadi Karam (Senior expert in Environment and Climate Change) and PhD Mohamed Salah Elsobki (Cairo University)
Project SOLE's outputs’ indicators, main results achieved and key lessons were then presented by project manager Rosa Schina from Anci Toscana, in a panel discussion with Ahmad Daraneh from RSS, Talal Salem from the Municipality of Jounieh and Joaquin Villar from the Andalusian Energy Agency (AEE): a series of videos on the project's most successful energy requalification interventions was then shown to the public and commented by the speakers.
From the left: Joaquin Villar (Andalusian Energy Agency), Talal Salem (Municipality of Jounieh), Rosa Schina (Anci Toscana), Ahmad Daraneh (RSS Jordan)
The morning works were closed by a panel discussion on the technical, regulatory and financial aspects to facilitate the energy requalification of public buildings which brought together key actors in the energy sector in Italy and Tuscany and was coordinated by Anci Toscana’s Delegate on this topic Sergio Chienni. It was a precious chance to discuss the results of the #SOLEenergyTALKS in the regional context and the SOLE’s policy recommendations at Mediterranean level with Camilla Troilo (GSE), Valerio Marangolo (Region of Tuscany), Antonella Ranaldi (Superintendency), Rossano Massai (ANCE Toscana), Giovanna Padellaro and Francesca Santi (Green Building Council Italy).
From the left: Antonella Ranaldi (Superintendency), Valerio Marangolo (Region of Tuscany), Rossano Massai (ANCE Toscana), Giovanna Padellaro and Francesca Santi (Green Building Council Italy) and Sergio Chienni (Anci Toscana).
The afternoon session focused on the social side of energy efficiency of public buildings. ARRR's project coordinator Susanna Ceccanti led a lively panel discussion on how to promote energy awareness in the workplace which brought together different experiences and awareness raising campaigns such as SOLE's ACT GREEN and "Italia in classe A", featuring experts such as Valerio Barberis (Councillor for Urban Planning and the Environment of the City of Prato), Giovanna Cepparello (Councillor for the Environment of the City of Livorno), Antoun Darakjian (RSS), Antonio Disi (ENEA) and Mariem Basly (FNCT).
From the left: Giovanna Cepparello (Municipality of Livorno), Antoun Darakjian (RSS), Susanna Ceccanti (ARRR), Mariem Basly (FNCT), Antonio Disi (ENEA).
Anci Toscana's Director Simone Gheri coordinated the closing panel called "The sun belongs to communities: the contribution of rehabilitated public buildings to Renewable Energy Communities (REC)": Simone Tartaro (ARRR) and Luca Perni (CET) illustrated the state of the art of the Italian and Tuscan Renewable Energy Communities while Gianni Parigi (BCC) and Adele Prosperoni (Confcoperative) investigated the best financial and legal frameworks to promote and support such initiatives. Andrea Pieragnoli, Mayor of the Municipality of Casole d’Elsa, shared his practical experience with Casole's Energy Community.
From the left: Simone Tartaro (ARRR), Andrea Pieragnoli (Municipality of Casole d’Elsa), Gianni Parigi (BCC), Adele Prosperoni (Confcoperative), Luca Perni (CET), Simone Gheri (Anci Toscana).
Simone Gheri concluded the event by drawing everybody's attention on the importance of implementing projects like SOLE, co-financed by ENI CBC MED, to achieve urgent and ambitious decarbonisation goals in the next decades: SOLE allowed an international partnership to test, evaluate and disseminate innovative and economic solutions to reduce energy consumption in public buildings in the Mediterranean area. Fostering an energy saving culture and integrating the concept of energy requalification in the every-day ways to design, maintain and manage public buildings are crucial activities, among many others, to make sure we collectively achieve the 2030 and 2050 climate goals.
