On October 10th, to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the BIRTUOSS project, the Plaza Bizkaia building in Bilbao hosted its General Assembly, where representatives of Opengela’s 14 partner organisations discussed the progress of the European project financed by the European Commission‘s LIFE programme, and set the guidelines that will define its future.

In addition, the meeting was an opportunity to officially introduce the new director of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government, Mikel Gargallo, who is the coordinator of the project.

The consortium is led by the Department of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government. It also includes the Basque Energy Agency (EVE), Bilbao Municipal Housing (VVMM), the clusters of Environment (Aclima), the Construction Industry (Build:Inn) and Knowledge and Technology (GAIA), the CAVIAR research group of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), EDE Fundazioa, the Cíclica cooperative (specialist in decarbonisation strategies), as well as companies with expertise in financing (GNE Finance), communication (Gabineteseis) and European affairs (Zabala Innovation), and also two European-level bodies such as Fedarene (European Federation of Energy and Environment Agencies and Regions) and Green Building Council Spain (GBCe).

HORIS (Home Renovation Integrated Services), a project funded by the European LIFE programme, has launched a cluster bringing together one-stop-shop projects from all over Europe.

The projects, including BIRTUOSS-Opengela, also funded by the EU’s LIFE programme, join forces to help citizens renovate their homes. Most are working on innovative solutions such as one-stop-shops to help residents at every step of the renovation process.

The new generation of one-stop-shop projects is key to learning from each other and from existing projects. Thus, the group meets monthly with the aim of sharing updates and exchanging knowledge on energy efficient building renovation. Most of the projects are in the early stages of developing One-Stop-Shops platforms and support each other along the way. The group has already held its first workshop on OSS platform development.

In addition to Opengela, participants include EU Peers; CondoReno; Leap; MultiHome Project or Reverter.