The City of Zadar held a virtual Study Visit regarding the Family Intelligent Energy Saving Targeted Action (FIESTA) project to share experiences and learning outcomes with Cork City Council and its regional stakeholders.
The FIESTA project aims to lead families with children to save energy at home, acting both on their energy consumption behaviour and on their purchasing decisions. This project supports European consumers to adopt more sustainable consumption behaviour in their daily life focusing on cooling and heating solutions which offer significant domestic saving potential. The project has 19 international partners including five counties with a Mediterranean climate – Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus.
The FIESTA project lead in Zadar, Ana Bajlo, facilitated the virtual Study Visit and gave a thorough presentation of the FIESTA overviews and learning outcomes. One of the main lessons from Ana’s experience leading the project is the need for an ambassador to encourage people to participate in the project.
During the Study Visit, Ana explains the difficulty in recruiting families in the project with promotional materials such as radio advertisements, social media strategies, and financial incentives doing little to stimulate community interest. This has been flagged as a common issue during the online session as other participants involved in other projects voiced the same concern – without citizen engagement the project success rate is most likely zero. A top-down approach is often received very poorly in the community.
However, having an ambassador can be an effective community engagement tool. Zadar approached families they already knew and carried out the project activities such as conducting energy audits, giving energy savings advice, providing budget rewards in the form of discounts for home appliances, etc. The families then had spread the word about the project and its beneficial aspects to other local households.
FIESTA project also had an Energy Help Desk in Zadar as a designated contact point for all families to learn more about the project and receive advices on technical and financial matters. FIESTA lotteries were also launched as a financial incentive for more families to join the project and win rewards in domestic appliances and discounts. Finally, a Local Consumers Group was established to promote local interest in the project with the involvement of local retailers offering discounts on installations and appliances.
To learn more about FIESTA project visit:
www.fiesta-audit.eu/en/learning/
ec.europa.eu/energy/intelligent/projects/en/projects/fiesta
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