'Delivering net zero carbon buildings for all' - BUILD UPON European Leaders’ Summit
03 - 04 December 2019
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The 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, held on 23 September in New York, which was also attended by the President of the Republic of Bulgaria, Gen. Rumen Radev, left no room for doubt that bringing carbon emissions down to zero by 2050 is the only goal that makes sense. For Europe, delivering a new Green deal for its citizens will mean cities and companies putting the construction of zero-energy buildings and the renovation of buildings already built at heart and in their sights. In response to this, our BUILD UPON 2 partners, namely the Europe Green Building Councils Network (ERN Network), Buildings Performance Institute Europe and Climate Alliance brought together 150 high-level leaders from Europe's public and private sectors for an inspiring event on 3 and 4 December in Brussels. We managed to show that Europe has the will and the solutions to move the world towards delivering zero-emission buildings for a better quality of life for the future generations.
On the first day of the meeting - 03 December - leaders in the private sector presented the near-zero emission solutions, offered by the business. Our speakers were representing global leaders in sustainable construction, the green building materials industry and private investors such as SKANSKA, YLVA, Saint-Gobain, Grosvenor Group, ING Real Estate Finance. The sessions were opened by Franz Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission and Mr. Clemens Brenninkmeyer, Director of Business Operations for Sustainable Development at Redevco. The afternoon programme gave us the opportunity for group sessions.
The second day, 04 December, was dedicated to the experiences of different cities in large-scale projects and policies for existing building stock renovation. The opening was made by Mr. Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki and Mr. Andrew McDowell, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank. The second part of the day was dedicated to practical activities in working groups where we exchanged our knowledge and experience in the field of green construction and strategy for sustainable urban solutions.
We are thankful for being given the chance to become a part of such high profile international event and the opportunity to bring with us our partners from EBRD - Energy efficiency and Climate change manager – Mr. Alexander Hadjiivanov and Sofia Green, represented by Project Director Ms.Elitza Panayotova.
