The city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Northern Spain is a leader in sustainability. This is demonstrated by the fact that it was chosen as Europe's Green-Capital in 2012. Like many cities it is now turning its attention to the deep energy efficiency retrofitting of its housing stock. This is necessary to ensure that the city meets its commitments under Paris Accord and as a signatory to the Covenant of Mayors. Energy consumption by buildings accounts for approximately 33% of all carbon emissions. Hence the need to reduce energy consumption (and thereby carbon emissions) by buildings is significant. 

Many technologies exist that can be applied to buildings to reduce energy consumption either in a single stage or incrementally. Whichever route is to achieve the Near Zero Energy Building (NZEB) rating, engaging successfully with the communities is a key determinant of success. 

Vitoria-Gaseiz is a lighthouse city in the Horizon 2020 SmartEnCity's project. The SmartEnCity’s vision is to create Smart Zero Carbon Cities that are more sustainable and inclusive, improve citizens’ quality of life, create jobs and wealth, and offer equal growth opportunities.

The Coronacion district of the Vitoria-Gasteiz has been selected by the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz for inclusion in a deep energy efficiency retrofitting project. In this webinar presentation representatives from Vitoria-Gasteiz will outline how the city has approached communities involved in the project to ensure a successful outcome.

Alberto Ortiz de Elgea (from VISESA, the Basque Public Housing Agengy) will talk about the Coronación neighbourhood experience (dwelling retrofitting + district heating project with a special focus in citizen engagement) in the H2020 SMARTENCITY project (https://smartencity.eu/about/lighthouse-cities/vitoria-gasteiz-spain/),  Joserra López (from EVE, the Basque Energy Agency) will speak about other experiences in the Basque Country (this time dealing with the creation of neighbourhood offices to act as one-stop-shops to provide advice and support to the neighbourhood community regarding urban regeneration projects) in the OPENGELA project (http://opengela.eus/en).

Finally, Olatz Nicolas (from Tecnalia’s Building Techologies division) will present how buildings in Vitoria-Gasteiz are selected seeking the aggregation to drive investments in energy efficiency retrofitting of private residential buildings, by means of developing and deploying innovative mechanisms to trigger demand and aggregation, better governance and tailored financing solutions in the frame of the AGREE project (https://agree-basquecountry.eu/en/ )