The first stages of the work for CONCERTO Plus was highly concentrated on the gathering of information on the communities' activities in order to be able to compile all data necessary for the development and creation of the CONCERTO dissemination tools.This part was extremely important for the CONCERTO Plus team to build a better understanding of the communities and their demonstration actions in order to effectively develop the common dissemination material.The logical evolution of this first phase of the project was to meet directly the different actors and stakeholders of the project to exchange information about their strategies, the difficulties faced and how they were overcome and the synergies created among the consortia of each project.

Initial face to face meetings were important steps for collecting and gathering information and also for the development of a real networkfor an efficient information and communication flow between all the partners. Organised in the Metropole Hotel in Brussels on 3rd – 5th July 2006, the CONCERTO Opening was a milestone to:

• thank the participants for their collaboration so far and for each of them to get to know each other to create a real network;

• define a common vision and a common strategy for CONCERTOand the 9 projects;

• reffine the further collaboration between CONCERTO Plus and the different projects and their involved communities, and provide the possibility for participants to raise their respective questions with the official representatives of the European Commission on specific subjects, such as financial and legal aspects.

Discussing the CONCERTO vision

ORGANISATION OF THE OPENING

In order to meet the objectives above, the CONCERTO Opening wasorganised in different parts:

• The first day was the occasion to present CONCERTO and to define together a common vision of the initiative.

• The second day was dedicated to running specific workshops for the possibility to work efficiently on three important topics: dissemination, socio-economic issues and policy recommendations as well as technical monitoring.

• The third day was dedicated to allow the community representatives to meet the members of the European Commission and to discuss the topics proposed by the participants themselves.

The Opening was well appreciated by all the participants who found it interesting to meet the other partners of the initiative and to discuss all together the different topics proposed in a friendly atmosphere.The main interests perceived were to meet different stakeholders and to start creating a network, and to discuss different topics that alltogether will constitute the basis of the CONCERTO initiative.

ESTABLISHING THE CONCERTO VISION

Before the CONCERTO Opening initial workshops were held at each of the CONCERTO demonstration projects at which ideas for a common vision were gathered. These ideas were displayed on posters as a “vision gallery” for participants to view to act as a base for further discussions during the afternoon on the first day of the CONCERTO Opening.

In three rounds of a “vision dialogue”the participants discussed the elements that were to be included in a common vision. They were asked to imagine a future after CONCERTO actions were completed and outline what they believed would be some of the key success factors of the initiative.

A large number of ideas were put forward for the vision of CONCERTO:

• in terms of Regulations and Directives, CONCERTO will make contributions to more ambitious energy efficiency standards on a local, national and international level and assist in unifying methodologies and benchmarking across Europe;

• CONCERTO delivers best practice and demonstration examples;

• CONCERTO is not only reserved for a selected group of people who should help to turn sustainable homes into something desired by all;
• education is important – sustainability should be integrated into every day educational and schooling programmes;

• personal involvement is of considerable importance, especially when used as an example in terms of “doing what we ask others to do”;

• there should be a focus on lobbying at the national and EU level,new legislation has to take into account the real needs at the ground level (bottom up approach), and national regulations must be adapted to actual needs, and
• the level of dissemination and collaboration is special in CONCERTO and it demonstrates the co-operation between local actors and stakeholders.