“Clim’actives” Prize-Winners

As implied by its name, "Communes Clim'actives" is an award-winning contest offering a prize to communal institutions that have shown a strong action plan for fighting the climate challenge. The International Polar Foundation was President of the jury. In total, the contest attracted 124 submissions from 77 Belgian communes.

During the award ceremony held on May 28th, Stéphane Nicolas, the spokesman for Benoît Lutgen, Walloon Minister of Environment, and Thierry Touchais, Director of the International Polar Foundation, stressed the reality of climate change and how important it was to get people to take action. The "Clim'actives" initiative has the advantage of bringing both collective action and the climate challenge at the forefront of our concerns.

Laureates:

• Best technical projects: Ohey (small commune category) and its heat networking project, Gesves (medium commune category) and the boiler room project, Peruwelz (large commune category) and the extension of the school Bon-Secours using passive building techniques.
• Best existing accomplishments: Floreffe (medium commune category) and the renovation of one of its communal buildings according to sustainable management, Frasnes lez Anvaing (large commune category) and its initiative to reduce communal employees' lunch break by 30 minutes in order to reduce local CO2 emissions.
• Best citizen participation projects: Sivry-Rance (small commune category) for its initiative to implement a "local action plan for energy", Bouillon (medium commune category) for its idea of sharing with the citizens ecological light bulbs and advise on to how to save energy, Dison (large commune category) and its plan to build wind turbines with the participation of its citizens in exchange for a revenue from these turbines. 

A series of short news reports has been produced about each of the eight laureates. They will be broadcasted in a sequence through the network of local television stations during the course of the summer.