DREEAM presented at the Social Housing Festival

DREEAM presented at the Social Housing Festival

DREEAM work was demonstrated at the International Social Housing Festival in Amsterdam (13th to 23rd June ). The overall theme of the festival was “Affordable Housing now, better communities tomorrow”.

DREEAM was presented on the 14th of June as part of a session on “Energy efficiency in social housing” that was conducted collectively by DREEAM and TRIME (a European project focusing on energy efficiency training for tenants).

After a short project introduction by Izabela Kurkowska (Chalmers), Kathleen Zoonnekindt (Savills) presented the DREEAM approach to tenant engagement as well as energy consumption monitoring before and after renovation. The presentation focused on both the methodology applied in the project and concrete examples resulting from the work performed in Treviso (ATER Treviso) and Padiham (Places for People) so far.

Kathleen’s presentation was followed by a Q&A with the audience. Among others, relevant questions and comments were made on the project’s approach to prevent a rebound effect taking place in the pilot buildings after the renovation. Similarly, the audience was interested in the fully-fledged methodology applied in DREEAM to measure the actual energy efficiency gains after the renovation.

Importantly, both presentations (DREEAM and TRIME) as well as the Q&A session proved that tenant engagement plays an increasingly important role in the strategies and day-to-day business of European housing companies.