bigEE

In the short and medium term, energy efficiency is the biggest, fastest, and most cost-effective option for saving energy and mitigating climate change. However, up until now there have neither been an integrated institutional and conceptional framework nor processes and coherent instruments specific for target groups, to collect the knowledge scattered around the world, assemble it according to scientific standards, and present it in a user-oriented, comprehensive, easy to use, and transparent way. For dissemination to target groups, there is a similar lack of a framework and specific instruments.

The aim of this project funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (FME) is the step-wise development of an internet-based knowledge platform "bigEE - bridging the information gap on Energy Efficiency in buildings", with support from the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) and in cooperation with partners in five focus countries.

The bigEE internet platform will

• raise greater attention for the various benefits of energy efficiency, especially on the demand-side,
• provide actors of identified target groups with concrete knowledge on technological solutions, potentials, costs and benefits of energy-efficient solutions as well as feasible implementation strategies, policies and measures - in a coherent, integrated, and user-oriented way,
• stimulate communication of these issues.

Primary target groups of the initiative are:

• policy-makers
• public and private investors
• actors and consultants in policy and energy service implementation

In the medium term the project aspires to have organisations and institutions both from a national (e.g. energy agencies, industry associations, and policy advisors, including from development cooperation) and the international level such as UNEP-SBCI, IEA, IPEEC, CEM, SE4All and GIZ use the knowledge provided on the internet platform and thereby actively support its wide dissemination.

A focus is on the partner countries China, South Africa and India and shall in the future be extended to further emerging economies (most likely Mexico and Turkey). The platform will include specific pages for these countries on the energy savings potential by sector and end use, net economic benefit, country-specific actor constellations in energy efficiency markets, as well as existing policy instruments and good practice case studies. These pages will complement the core part of the platform, consisting of information on energy efficiency in buildings that is useful for all countries of the world.

Prof. Dr. Peter Hennicke, the former president of the Wuppertal Institute, assists the project team as principal advisor.