To drive the project objectives towards success, the partners need to engage with key stakeholders in their regions. These are policy makers, regional and local authorities, researchers and private sector companies in the low carbon sector.
Stakeholders are the drivers of the project; without them the project would not achieve its goals. There are several ways they are brought on board, through local stakeholder groups which meet twice yearly and interregional learning events, such as Peer Review, Study Visits and Technical Workshops.
In September 2017 Energy Agency of Podravje prepared the 1st Stakeholders meeting in Maribor. At the 1st meeting the project was presented in details: project partners, work plan, aims and the importance of stakeholders’ involvement. They agree that there should be 2 groups of stakeholders we will work with: smaller and bigger one involving all end-users (directors or headmasters of public buildings, other employees, visitors …, depending on the specific public building). The second group is very important for educational and informational activities. The main goal of the project – monitoring and anticipated financial savings with the focus on Policy Instrument – National Degree about energy management in public sector was presented. The Policy Instrument and its implementation possibilities were also presented. Dynamic monitoring of energy use and expenses for one example of public building was presented as a show case.
Participants discussed about the need to have energy and financial monitoring in place in all buildings, how detailed the monitoring should be, how to implement it, recruiting responsible persons (as a building energy manager), the role of the municipalities, headmasters, ministries…
