CTO Assessment - European Commission

such as in the Region of Warmia,
wood fuels represent a very important
potential.
Solid political decisions have in a few
occasions been the catalyst for ambitious
projects such as the “Fossil Fuel
Free” of Växjö, where the municipality
unanimously decided to stop using
fossil fuels. A similar case was
the Ingalina initiative (Sweden),
where the regional administration set
the objective to reduce the use of heavy
fuel oil (mazout) and to start to use
local fuel as biomass. Political will is
also expressed through exemplary
behaviours that can be used as a reference,
such as the Paul Löbe Haus,
which can be considered as an example
of coherence in public action
criteria regarding building, supporting
the principle of preaching through
examples. Processes of sustainable
urban renovation supported by the
administration are a different side of
this dimension, as it is demonstrated
by the Barcelona 2004 project.
Environmental motivation is clearly
identified in cases such as the Munich
initiative, where the RE Partnership
created involves the members
of the already existing “Munich Ecology
Alliance”, which included craftsmen’
organisations, industry, NGOs,
banks, administrative authorities, as
well as the municipal utility company
and the Munich Energy Agency. One
of the key factors in Austria and Germany
is also the opposition to nuclear
power rising in the 80s from a majority
of citizens, which helped to a large
extent to prepare the ground of action
for a local RES initiative. At
Lüchow we see how the initiative
arises from a growing debate concerning
the possible building of a final
disposal of nuclear waste in a small
village of the district.
The framework created through sustainable
development plans and
putting into practice local Agendas
21 have been other important vectors
towards new initiatives within CTO,
as well as important vehicles for RES
development in Europe. It is worth
mentioning here the case of Ålborg,
based on promoting environmental
awareness since the initiative “Clean
City - Green City”, the energy dimension
of Isle of Wight’s
Agenda 21, the longterm
plan for energy sustainability
on Götland,
the Agenda 21 of Chieti,
or the El Hierro 100%
RES initiative, which
based its programme on
the planning strategy
arisen from its declaration
as a UNESCO Biosphere
Reserve. These
motivations are complementary
to the initiatives seeking to
redirect development models in crisis,
such as the successful case of
Varese Ligure with its Sustainable
Project.
Availability of technical reconversion
or technological opportunities also
played an important role. Several
cases benefited from the fact that the
traditional heating systems were coming
to the end of their life, and that it
was therefore the right time to make
a decision on the new heating system
and to propose a more environmental
energy system at the same time. This
is for instance the example of the industry
Fischer who needed to replace
its 30 year-old system of a steam boiler
in conjunction with a back-up boiler,
fired by heavy heating oil to supply
the heat demands.
Most initiatives included the creation
of new jobs as an initial factor of
motivation. The experience in several
areas showed that this was right. For
example, the German district of
Lüchow-Dannenberg with its high
unemployment rate and facing the
difficult situation of educated people
leaving the district chose to re-activate
the formerly successful agriculture
and forestry sectors, mainly by
promoting biomass, using among others
a clever system of a central biogas
installation to provide electricity to
5000 households using waste products
coming from the starch factors
and from the nearby farmers. The
example of Æro shows another interesting
motivation based on the idea
of creating a stabilised niche of green
jobs.
Market reasons, such as production
of electricity at a competitive price,
have been determining factors in
cases such as the development of the
Biofuel CHP plant at Pietarsaari, and
in special circumstances such as is-
Achievements and lessons
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