The European Award "TOWARDS CLASS A" 2011 LILLE lived up to its ambitions

Being in the race to become the new champion in the French football "Ligue 1‟ competition did not seem ambitious enough for the City of Lille, which recently engaged into another "battle" to win a prize in the energy saving field.

Just a few millimetres short of being finalist in the competition last year, Lille made an extra effort to ensure that this would be its year of glory. Lille received the First Prize from the hands of the President of the Jury Pekka Sauri, Vice-President of Energy Cities and Deputy Mayor of Helsinki.

By winning the Towards Class "A" Award 2011, Lille also confirmed its status as one of the French leading cities in the energy efficiency field.

Display® Towards Class A - The European Award for creative communication campaigns in your buildings

Since 2006, 48 cities from 17 countries have taken part in the Award. Currently almost 500 towns and cities are using Display® to communicate the water, energy and CO2 performance of their buildings. Communication is a key tool in the progress and the results of building labelling implementation. For this reason, the Award is all about recognising and cheering the communication efforts of the cities. At the same time, it encourages the exchange of experiences and ideas to achieve more effective campaigns capable of obtaining a real change in the behaviour of the community.

2011 Participants

This year, 12 cities from 8 countries competed for the Award. Just like last year, two series of evaluations took place. The first one was held late March, where six finalists were chosen. These finalists were invited to the second round to personally defend their applications in front of an international jury, in the afternoon of April 12th. In that meeting began something that would become an extremely tight race between the 6 finalists.

The Finalists

Based on such criteria as quality, strategy and originality of the communication campaign, involvement of different actors and dissemination of the activities/events organised, the six chosen Finalists were: Oeiras (PT) Vanves (FR) Velenje (SL) Cork County (IE) Lille (FR) Cascais (PT)

The venue

The ceremony of the Awards was held on Wednesday April 13th, in Brussels, in the framework of the European Union Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW). The Ceremony took place at the end of the high profile event "Communicate your buildings energy rating - 7 magical years of the Display® Campaign", with Pekka Sauri, deputy mayor of Helsinki (FI), announcing the winners as the president of this year‟s jury.

The winners

The City of Lille, France, was awarded with the First Prize.

About this candidate, the Jury declared: "The City of Lille caught our attention with the breadth, depth, personalization and innovation in its use of materials to raise awareness of energy consumption in buildings and how to manage and reduce it - often by quite literally immersing their target audiences into the message they wish to convey. Lille has a very high ambition: to communicate the importance of saving energy and CO2 to everyone."

What most impressed the jury is the "balance of strategy and actions with which the city aims at making its contribution to the EU's shared '20:20:20' objectives." Finally, the jury concluded that the word "balance‟ best described their efforts: "Balance is the key word: achieving the balance between communicating to city staff and to the wider public; between physically improving buildings and influencing behavior; between attention to detail and the bigger picture; between leadership and calls to action; and between pragmatism and idealism.

The First Prize is a giant energy certificate to be displayed in the public building of winner‟s choice, to follow the footsteps of the previous award winners: Brasov and Ivanic-Grad.

The Second Prize went to Cork County (Ireland).

The jury praised them for "managing the very impressive feat of labeling all of its buildings with Display® energy certificates". Because "more than half of energy in Cork County's buildings is consumed when they are not being used", the jury also highlighted their strong and simple message to building users "Take control!‟. "This provides the County with a powerful headline under which to deliver its comprehensive range of training and communication activities." The Jury saved their highest compliment for the end stating that they "would like to recognize in particular that Cork County is a shining example of the public sector fulfilling the exemplary role it is expected to play, at the time that it must."

The Second Prize is an educational kit of 12 models on renewable energy for primary and secondary schools.

The City of Velenje convinced the Jury who awarded it with the Third Prize.

This was notably due to the "recognition of its considerable efforts and success in raising the profile of energy consumption in buildings, both locally and across Slovenia, in challenging conditions." What impressed the jury is that despite the fact that "the town is supplied with the cheapest heat and power available in Slovenia", they "managed to influence its citizens, as well as national decision-makers, through its communications and use of the Display resources."

The Third Prize consists in our annual favourite: 100 aquaclic water saving devices.

Notes to the editor

The Display Towards Class "A" Award is open to all local authorities throughout Europe. The Award recognises best municipal communication activities and raises the awareness of building users about energy and water consumption, as well as CO2 emissions.

Energy-Cities, where action and vision meet

The association of European local authorities promoting a local sustainable energy policy, encourages the role and importance of local authorities‟ actions in sustainable development by launching and implementing clean energy policies. www.energy-cities.eu

Press contact

Miriam Eisermann

Email: www.energy-cities.eu/miriam

Phone: +33 3 81 65 36 82

More information: www.display-campaign.org

ClaireIOCHUM

Information officer

Tel: +33 3 81 65 36 87

Skype: claire_energy-cities

www.energy-cities.eu