On 21 June Barbara Hendricks, Federal Minister of construction, opened the two-day conference “From the building to the city quarter – five years KfW-programme “energetic urban redevelopment””. The programme is a joint project of KfW and the Federal Ministry for Environment, Construction and nuclear Safety (BMUB). In the frame of the evaluation of the funding programme Hendricks said: “Our integrated approach “from the building to the city quarter” is a process for the future. It builds the base for more energy efficiency in existing buildings and promotes affordable living and agebased conversion.” She emphasized that the success of the energy transition to a large extent depends on the improvement of the energy efficiency in entire city quarters.
Since 2011 municipalities can apply for subsidies for improving the energy efficiency of entire city quarters. Through this programme additional potential for a local energy transition beyond individual buildings should be mobilized. The programme has so far provided further impetus throughout Germany and in more than 550 city quarters energetic redevelopment projects have been initiated. Additionally, individual solutions have been developed – for central quarters with older buildings as well as for large housing estates or single-family house districts in rural areas.
The programme also attracts interest on the international level. Since 2015 a project funded by the BMUB is in progress in Lithuania. It focuses on the consultation of the Lithuanian Ministry of Environment for the development of a funding programme for energetic redevelopment of city quarters similar to the KfW-programme, but in line with the Lithuanian framework conditions. Against this background Daiva Matoniene, the representative Environmental Minister of Lithuania, presented the approach for energy efficiency in buildings and city quarters from the Lithuanian perspective on the second day of the conference.
More information on projects by KfW can be found under https://www.kfw.de/kfw.de-2.html.
aconium has already successfully managed numerous projects in the field of energy efficiency, such as 
North Sea – Sustainable Energy Planning or LOWCAP, which focused on the reduction of CO2 and the increase of energy efficiency in the North Sea region.