Elise Steyaert is a business developer and project leader in energy efficiency at Vlaams EnergieBedrijf (The Flemish Energy Company). ClimateX sat down with Elise to discuss climate change issues in Europe, and the role of finance in energy solutions. She is most proud of the local climate cooperative she helped launch. If you’re interested in learning more, check out Klimaan.be
Mikaela: Tell us a little bit about your background. Why did you choose to address climate change and sustainable development in Europe?
Elise: During my studies, I wanted to do something about injustice and was interested in sustainability in the developing world. But then I got very sensitive about the fact that we (the West) didn’t have structural solutions ourselves, so who were we to provide these “sustainable solutions” somewhere else? Historically, we’ve interfered with other parts of the world, with known negative consequences. It’s often the most vulnerable people who have nothing to do with emitting greenhouse gas emissions, that have to cope with the negative results of it. We shouldn’t make the same mistakes again. We should develop an alternative to the excessive use of fossil fuel extraction we used when we (the West) were developing.
After reflecting on these issues, I decided to focus locally. I changed my focus to sustainable development in European cities in order to find proper long-term solutions.
Mikaela: How would you frame your approach to climate action?
Elise: Climate change is not an issue on its own, it’s multi-sectoral and triggers other challenges, like economic diversification needs, social challenges (inequality and a just energy transition) and technological issues that ensue. We need to do things with way fewer resources. We have to rethink our value chain on all products, and rather provide circular service solutions.
Mikaela: Can you tell us about Climate Alliance and the work you did there?
Elise: Climate Alliance in Europe is the biggest network of local authorities that work on climate and energy issues - 1,700 municipalities and cities are currently members. Climate Alliance member show that the European goals on climate and energy can be more ambitious, so they instate their own goals. For instance, by 2030, Climate Alliance said we would lower CO2 emissions by 50%, and we would have a 40% target for the renewable energy, and 40% improvement for the energy efficiency. And because those local authorities are more ambitious, they become pioneers to mobilize other local groups and exchange knowledge.
Significant potential for containing CO2 emissions is in building. In Europe, more than 30% of CO2 emissions come from the building sector for our heating demands and our electricity. In order to make profound change, we need significant investments. Some countries, like ours (Belgium), have very strict interpretations of public debt because of excessive deficits. As a consequence of the financial crisis 2008-2009, European control on public accounts increased and put limits on the capital formation which is contradictory to the level of public investment needed to show the right example and make the public building stock climate-neutral.
Mikaela: Do you see finance as part of the solution for environmental justice?
Elise: At one point in Climate Alliance, I was leading a finance group, focused on finance solutions for energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is less tangible, so it is more difficult for politicians to prioritize energy efficiency programs because it’s less visible than, say, a windmill. The joke is that energy efficiency is “not sexy enough”. And that is an issue because we need huge investments in building infrastructure to reduce our energy demand in the first place.
My work focuses on energy performance contracting. Public building owners have contracts with a service company, and they guarantee energy saving level mostly between 20% to 40% for the building owner. And the service company can be quite creative in which optimal combination of measures to use in reaching the guaranteed amount of saving. If they are not reached, the service partner makes up the difference, and when they perform better than the agreed level, the service company receives a bonus. So, there is an incentive to save more and more energy. You change the economic incentives completely. What’s important for the building owner becomes important for the energy service company, and helps the environment.
Mikaela: Why did you transition from working at an organization like Climate Alliance, to the more regionally-oriented “Vlaams EnergieBedrijf”?
Elise: While working at Climate Alliance, I saw that my own region in Flanders was really behind in the sustainable energy targets. It was a tough decision because I really enjoyed my European network job, but I felt I had to build concrete impact locally before spreading the knowledge and advocating for the right policies at European level. So, I started working with Vlaams EnergieBedrijf. The interesting thing about my current job is that we act as a regional aggregator. Small-scale public entities are harder to engage in energy performance contracts. It’s more interesting in terms of economies of scale to bundle them and procure in an efficient way different volumes of investment and actually operate as a market facilitator.
We procure for the entire Flemish public sector new kinds of sustainable energy services (circular performance contracting with guaranteed water and material savings, healthy indoor climates, renewable supply service contracts etc.). You always need to list very transparently how you will award a contract to a private entity. And that gives you buying power, if you ask for dismountable materials, or ask about the most optimal ambitious level of energy savings that are guaranteed. And you say “these are the results I want to see” and you pay a fee for those results. So often people think public procurement is very boring, but once you understand the impact of it, it becomes very interesting.
Mikaela: How can we inspire and empower people to fight climate change?
Elise: The solution was starting a “Climate Cooperative”. We gathered with citizens in the back of a bar, and we debated if we wanted to start a new one, or join with an existing one, Ecopower, which is already a regional organization. But from then it was very clear that everyone was interested in starting new local movement, where people can become the shareholders, and we can co-decide on energy and climate projects here. Klimaan (klimaan.be) was born. It starts with small-scale, renewable energy projects like photovoltaics installations and if all goes well, in wind, and heat networks, and also energy savings in larger buildings. And then from there, we want to grow in sustainable ways and adopt more innovative approaches again, with more circular ways of renovation, but also sustainable services in mobility and city farming. At Klimaan, we believe in integrated solutions where various challenges are adopted like in storage, demand-side response and the use of shared electrical vehicles.
We develop solutions on a district level to make energy systems that are independent. The reason that the model is very different is because of it’s democratic nature. It’s not just an investment vehicle, it’s a cooperative, following the ICA principles (https://www.ica.coop/en). In Flanders there 15 similar organizations, gathered by REScoop Vlaanderen (https://www.rescoopv.be/). REScoop stands for Renewable Energy Sources Cooperative. Every head has one vote, and the cooperatives support each other on the in-house knowledge that has to be built. In a REScoop, every citizen can become a shareholder, shareholder of the future solutions, which can be sustainably profitable for the community. In Europe, there are already 3,500 of these REScoops. By 2050 half of the European population could be producing renewable energy and co-invest in energy savings programs. The European policies are even adopting a new concept of Local Energy Communities to support these citizen movements and hopefully, provide a proper place for it within the energy transition infrastructure.