EcoHouse Antwerp 📍 Antwerp, Belgium

Author: Natalia Altman (EuC), Beatriz Martínez (UPM)

How can we support households in energy efficiency renovations without leaving no one behind?

EcoHouse is a physical one-stop-shop for households offering all city services for building and living run by the city of Antwerp. Its focus is on energy reduction and renewables. It offers workshops and advice on energy retrofitting, as well as both short- and long-term solutions for saving energy and money.

Source: Stad Antwerpen

The building sector is responsible for more than one-third of the European Union’s carbon emissions. The European Commission and other well-recognised EU institutions have issued a call for the creation of one-stop-shops to provide tailored energy efficiency renovation advice and financing solutions to homeowners.

One-stop shops can bridge the gap between households and the construction supply side. They can help increase the actual renovation rate by supporting potential clients through the various steps of the decision-making process and can play a key role in EU’s clean energy transition.

Antwerp’s EcoHouse plays a key role in helping encourage people to start renovation projects and coordinate them. It is open to the general public, with a substantive part of its work focused on more vulnerable groups. It is a place for the community where residents can find inspiration, information, advice and financial support. The place also offers meeting spaces, exhibitions related to green practices, a repair cafe, an ecoshop with books on sustainable buildings, greenery, among others.

Challenges adressed on the project

  • Innovation Management and Digitization
  • Stakeholder/ Community engagement and capacity building
  • Financing and Funding
  • Energy systems
  • Skills & Capabilities

An innovative approach

Ecohouse conducts audits and offers solutions for saving energy and money. The short term solutions include advice on how to change behaviour to save energy, and free installation of simple energy saving products such as energy saving light bulbs. For more long-term and advanced solutions EcoHouse prepares a personalised plan for investing in energy saving infrastructure, which is based on the energy audit. For example, installing roof insulation or new energy efficient heating devices. It then provides support to residents in implementing these solutions.

They also stands out for offering substantive support and advice to vulnerable groups. It also has a special programme for schools, offering workshops, activities, subsidies, advice and materials to support them to fulfill their green goals.

Source: Antwerpen voor Klimaat

Main positive lessons

  • Offering easy to implement solutions that bring immediate gains helped attract interest. The city created a simple and attractive voucher with information on free energy-saving products, together with tips on how to change behaviour and save money straight away.
  • Partnering and spreading the word through organisations significantly boosted the response rate to the programme. EcoHouse works in partnership with a range of welfare, housing, education, migrant, and community organisations, and across city departments.

Main barriers found

  • Traditional means of communication such as newsletters, especially the ones using jargon or terms like ‘energy audit’ and ‘infrastructural energy savings investments’, had little impact and a discouraging effect.

Potential for replication and scale-up:

This model has been replicated in other places in the Flemish region. However, this solution is more targeted to bigger municipalities, since the financial and human resources needed are quite high.

Learn more about EcoHouse Antwerp case study

Photos and videos extracted from the official pages and accounts of the iniitiative