Resource: Methodology for successful cooperation between the public and private sector

Description

Working and succeeding in sustainable ambitions and targets on different levels of the built environment on a municipal scale, can only be reached if the urban government and private enterprises formulate their ambitions and objectives and execute it in an organized way.
This is the core of successful collaborations in ambitious projects in general, but certainly if the targets are related to energy efficiency issues. Energy Covenants could be very helpful, because covenants facilitate both common as individual interests. Voluntary commitment is preceded by the question: What’s in for me, and what is the added value of working together? The answer is mostly and in all cases the same: Collaboration with several authoritative partners provides significant results and continuity.

Implementation

The City of Tilburg, the Netherlands, is very experienced in these kinds of collaborative forms. What was started as a coincidental initiative has now become the third Energy Covenant at present (see chapter 3: The Tilburg case study). Together with all local social housing associations, they work steady and continuous on energy saving targets. All parties’ benefits: The city council benefits in the progress and results concerning their general environmental policy targets and the social housing associations are able to realize their targets tailor made, depending on their specific organizational needs and policy strategies. And last but not least: all parties’ profits from exchange of knowledge, experience and cost sharing.

Information

The key issue throughout the project is to develop a flexible implementation technique that can easily be adapted to local conditions and future developments. It is therefore crucial to clearly determine which aspects are of an international nature and which aspects should be adaptable to local conditions and, furthermore, which future developments are to be expected. The international diversity of the existing residential building stock, limiting conditions and market circumstances in social housing should be taken into account.