Press Release, Athens Feb 11, 2022
PROBONO Accelerates Sustainability with European Urban Transformation Project
A €20 million research project funded by the European Commission as part of its €77 billion Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme has been launched. PROBONO, which will run for five years, will help drive a ‘renovation wave’ to meet EU-wide energy efficiency, sustainability, and affordability objectives, framed in the Green Deal manifestos.
The project’s overall ambition is to provide validated solutions for the design, construction, and operation of new and/or retrofitted carbon neutral and positive energy buildings (generating more power than they consume) as part of sustainable green neighbourhood developments that meet the most demanding sustainability standards set by the European Green Deal.
Marina Laskari, Research Scientist at Inlecom Innovation, R&D specialist who leads the Innovation agenda for the project, comments: “With the climate crisis upon us, there is an urgency to implement solutions that will help keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. Buildings, 35% of which are over 50 years old in the EU, are one of the big emitters of CO2 and greenhouse gases with emissions generated at every stage of their lifecycle. Effectively, we need to start applying circular thinking to the way we renovate and construct buildings if we are to accelerate the decarbonisation of the EU’s building stock. PROBONO gets to the route of the issue by driving innovation and looking at ways we can change how we design, construct and operate buildings to help meet this imperative.”
Drawing on the deep knowledge and expertise of over 45 partners from 15 different countries consisting of construction actors, public asset service managers, municipalities, technology solution providers and experts, PROBONO will look to transform six European districts into Green Buildings and Neighbourhoods (GBNs) .Project work engages citizens in co-designing and co-delivering sustainable GBNs.
The six districts, acting as living labs, are linked to business and municipality greening plans. More specifically, the six PROBONO living labs include two municipality-driven large-scale demonstrators (Madrid and Dublin) and four living labs representing business/owner promoters of the green buildings and neighbourhoods’ transition (Porto, Brussels, Aarhus, Prague).
PROBONO will create energy efficient and sustainable green neighbourhoods
PROBONO brings together a European multidisciplinary consortium of 47 partners, construction and consulting entities, public asset service managers, municipalities, technology solution providers and experts, to turn the six European districts (PROBONO´s Living Labs) into Green Building Neighbourhoods (GBN), with positive energy balance and zero carbon emissions: two large-scale demonstrators (Madrid and Dublin) and four living labs representing business/owner promoters of the green buildings and neighbourhoods’ transition (Porto, Brussels, Aarhus, Prague).
Inlecom Innovation is a proud member of the PROBONO consortium, holding the role of the Technical manager and driving the Living Labs' implementation activities.
Learn more about the project
This project has received funding from the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under GA 101037075. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
