WISIONS: Fostering sustainable energy projects and spreading good-practice-examples of resource-efficiency

Holger Wallbaum, Carmen Dienst, and Maike Bunse, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy

Keywords

WISIONS, SEPS, PREP, resource-efficiency, energy-efficiency, Renewables, buildings, sustainability

Abstract

WISIONS of sustainability (www.wisions.net), an initiative of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy with the support of the Swiss-based foundation ProEvolution, has the purpose of fostering practical sustainable energy projects. The initiative's objective is to identify promising sustainable projects and to combine spreading knowledge of existing projects with promoting and furthering new project ideas. Two fields of action support realisation of new project ideas (SEPS) and spread successful examples (PREP).

One action field of WISIONS, the Promotion of Resource Efficiency Projects (PREP), primarily focuses on detecting and promoting existing replicable good practice projects in energy and resource efficiency. The most convincing examples are disseminated to different target groups, multipliers and decision-makers through a brochure and the internet. The first topic was focussed on "Resource Efficient Construction" and the according brochure gained positive recognition from stakeholders all over the world.

The other action field of WISIONS, the Sustainable Energy Project Support (SEPS), aims at supporting promising ideas in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency, e.g. in the construction sector. SEPS seeks to overcome the existing barriers by providing financial support or support for obtaining additional funding. The projects have to be in a stage prior to implementation and will be judged according to a set of ambitious criteria and the quality of a consistent implementation strategy.

Finally, with the combination of supporting not yet realised project ideas and already implemented successful projects, WISIONS enhances opportunity of knowledge transfer from practical experience to replicable actions.