2. Road to a climate-neutral Leuven
ELENA as a lever for an urban climate transition

3. Shared climate ambitions
Unique governance model
02/ Scientific report KU Leuven
11/ Founding of ngo Leuven (Climate- Neutral) 2030
12/2014 – First large-scale network meeting on 25 specific challenges > pilot projects
12/2016 – CO2-dashboard (online)
03/2019 – Public presentation Roadmap ‘2025|2035|2050’ during conference ‘Road to 2050’

4. Energy efficiency in non-residential sector
Benefits of collaboration
Need for drastic reductions in energy consumption
Collaboration and co-creation regarding large buildings
Increasing the ambition, accelerating the pace
Knowledge sharing
Community building

5. ELENA project L.E.U.V.E.N. General summary 18 > 24 partners
38 > 50+ M€ of investments
40 building projects
Deep renovation
Light renovation
Renewable energy

6. ELENA project L.E.U.V.E.N. 24 project partners, 40 building projects
Public and private partners
Large and small partners
Residential and non-residential buildings

7. ELENA project L.E.U.V.E.N. Obstacles encountered Financial
Schools: Long approval periods for subsidies from regional governments for the investment projects. Often it takes up to 8 years. By the time the money comes, the context may have changed.
Social housing: No possibility for housing companies to raise the rent when the energy bill decreases.
Social housing: Existing regulations are counterproductive for the installation of collective systems (heat pumps, micro heating networks, rain water reuse, …)
First things first?
Private companies: Actions that are more visible, easier to communicate or directly related to production are often preferred by the management to less attractive (long- term) investments
Building stock
Recent buildings (> 2000): Difficult to straighten out the mistakes that were made in the recent past
Heritage: Restrictions, interference from different sides, discussions about use

8. ELENA project L.E.U.V.E.N. Leverage impact of the funding
Growth in number of partners and amount of investments
Raising the bar for energy performance
Strong story, visibility for partners, projects, Leuven 2030
Kickstart for continued dissemination afterwards

9. ELENA project L.E.U.V.E.N. Dissemination on a large scale
Roadmap 2025|2035|2050
13 programs, 80 project clusters
Program 2 – energy renovations of non-residential/large buildings
Intermediate milestones for energy consumption
-55% (2035)
-85% (2050)
Kickstart september 2019

10. “The ELENA fund was crucial for kickstarting one of our biggest climate transition challenges.”
–Jan Aerts, program engineer L.E.U.V.E.N.

11. LEUVEN2030.BE
@LEUVEN2030
LEUVEN 2030