BetterLIFE Kick-off meeting in Slovenia
Between the 15-16 October, in Maribor, Slovenia, the official kick-off meeting for the EU-funded BetterLIFE project took place. Codema attended the kick-off meeting in person, representing Dublin as one of BetterLIFE’s core pilot cities.
Purpose of the meeting
The event was the official kick-off meeting for the EU-funded BetterLIFE project, held in Maribor, Slovenia.
The initiative helps European cities accelerate their clean energy transition by designing effective Local Heating and Cooling Plans (LHCPs). BetterLIFE centres on three main pillars: ensuring financial viability, co-creating solutions with local communities, and planning the phase-out of fossil gas grids.
The meeting brought international partners together to establish project foundations and agree on key priorities:
- Aligning Project Delivery: Establishing shared governance, timelines, and technical tools for energy planning and forecasting.
- Reviewing Pilot Cities: Examining baseline heating and cooling challenges across participating locations, including Dublin, Athens, Almada, Gabrovo, and Maribor.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Running collaborative workshops to identify target groups, evaluate adoption barriers, and plan local task forces.
Codema's role in the project
Codema attended the kick-off meeting in person to represent Dublin as one of BetterLIFE’s core pilot cities.
Codema’s key contributions during the activity included:
Presenting Dublin’s heating context
Consortium decision-making
Stakeholder strategy workshops
Key outcomes and learnings
The kick-off meeting delivered several key governance outcomes, technical alignments, and practical insights for the BetterLIFE project:
- Pilot Baseline Insights: Partners benchmarked city-specific challenges, contrasting Dublin’s heavy gas dependence and low district heating capacity with Athens’ urgent space-cooling demands and Gabrovo’s capital financing barriers.
- Stakeholder Frameworks: Cross-partner working sessions developed the project’s Stakeholder Analysis Matrix, mapping key target groups and identifying social, economic, and technical barriers to clean heat uptake.
- Local Co-Design Delivery: In Maribor, an interactive stakeholder workshop defined a shared clean energy vision, categorised local engagement levels (from consultation to co-decision), and launched the Maribor Pilot Task Force.
