MICAT in EUSEW's 2022 Extended Programme

The session gave a wide audience of policy-makers, investors, and private sector actors a thorough understanding of the multiple benefits approach, its expediency, the barriers hindering its widespread implementation, and its different fields of application. The session was organised by five different projects, all focusing on multiple benefits from different perspectives: M-Benefits focused on companies and the tertiary sector; DEESME on SMEs; EERAdata targeted buildings, with a special emphasis on municipal facilities; REFEREE and MICAT both focus on societal multiple benefits targeting policy-making and investors, using different methodologies.

In order to capitalise on these different perspectives, the session began with a workshop subdivided into five parallel groups, one for each project’s focus. In these groups, the multiple benefits associated with energy efficiency projects was discussed, thereby generating a common understanding of the general concept of multiple benefits.

Once the audience has internalised the concept and discussed the different perspectives in the breakout groups, invited speakers who had participated in the table discussions were invited on stage to debate the topic in greater depth. In order to spark a lively conversation, the panel included speakers representing policy-making, SMEs, finance, energy agencies, and the environmental movement. During this time, the multiple benefits approach’s potential and practical barriers as well as the related new visibility thanks to the inclusion in many articles of the EED recast was discussed, rendering the debate very timely.

The emphasis of the workshop however remained on the general multiple benefits approach rather than on the specifics of the five involved EU projects, which were merely presented through digital leaflets containing links and information, which were made available to participants during the session.