The proposed project intends to support Member States in establishing or improving national and local schemes for SMEs to undergo energy audits and implement cost-effective recommended energy-saving measures. An initial work of policies and programmes mapping will be followed by an in-depth understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, with the aim of overcoming the current criticalities and bottlenecks. At the same time a work of characterisation of SMEs in terms of energy consumption, size and sector will be carried out to understand effective ways to properly address existing and innovative energy audit policies. Provided a continuous interaction (by means of workshops, questionnaires, meetings) with policy makers as well as SMEs and ESCOs/Energy Auditors associations, a set of policy proposals and recommendations will be then developed and diffused. The priorities guiding the policy and recommendation development will be: - Effectiveness and orientation to real market needs; - Integration with other points of the EED, particularly article 7 Energy Efficiency Obligation Schemes and alternative measures; - Replicability, at least for SMEs sector/size/region; A fundamental part of the project, with a relevant participation requested to each partner, will be a continuous action of capacity building and dissemination addressed to policy makers and relevant stakeholders at European, National and Regional level. In order to concentrate the efforts on new challenges and to valorise previous efforts, the Consortium is committed to take as much advantage as possible of results obtained in previous pertinent EU funded projects (such as ENSPOL, ODYSSEE-MURE, EPATEE) and relevant initiatives such as EEFIG and its related Sustainable Energy Investment Forums. On request of the European Institutions, the Consortium would also be very glad to contribute, through findings and results of the project, to the current debate on the SME definition.

This proposal responds to a call from the Research Councils for a national Centre on energy demand research, building on the work of the existing six End Use Energy Demand Centres, for which funding ends in April 2018. Energy demand reduction is a UK success story, with a 15% fall in final energy consumption since 2004. Major further reductions are possible and will be needed, as part of a transformation of the energy system to low carbon, to deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UK carbon budgets. Moreover, a low carbon energy system will be increasingly reliant upon inflexible and variable electricity generation, and therefore demand will also need to become more flexible. In short, changes in energy demand reduction will need to go further and faster, and demand will need to become more flexible. These challenges have far-reaching implications for technology, business models, social practices and policy. Our vision is for energy demand research in the UK to rise to these challenges. The Centre's ambition is to lead whole systems work on energy demand in the UK, collaborating with a wider community both at home and internationally. We aim to deliver globally leading research on energy demand, to secure much greater impact for energy demand research and to champion the importance of energy demand for delivering environmental, social and economic goals. Our research programme is inter-disciplinary, recognising that technical and social change are inter-dependent and co-evolve. It is organised into six Themes. Three of these address specific issues in the major sectors of energy use, namely: buildings, transport and industry. The remaining three address more cross-cutting issues that drive changing patterns of demand, namely the potential for increased flexibility, the impact of digital technologies, and energy policy and governance. Each Theme has a research programme that has been developed with key stakeholders and will provide the capacity for the Centre to inform debate, deliver impact and share knowledge in its specific area of work. The Themes will also undertake collaborative work, with our first joint task being to assess the role of energy demand in delivering the objectives of the UK Government's Clean Growth Plan. The Centre will also include Challenges that respond to cross-thematic questions for UK energy demand. These will mostly be developed in consultation over the early years of the Centre, and therefore only one is included in the initial plan: on the decarbonisation of heat. The Centre will function as a national focus for inter-disciplinary research on energy demand. In doing this it will need to respond to a rapidly evolving energy landscape. It will therefore retain 25% of its funds to allocate during the lifetime of the Centre through a transparent governance process. These funds will support further challenges and a 'Flexible Fund', which will be used to support research on emerging research questions, in particular through support for early career researchers. We are working closely with key stakeholders in business and policy to design our research programme and we plan detailed knowledge exchange activities to ensure that the work of the UK energy demand research community has broader societal impact.

Addressing emissions from transport is becoming increasingly important due to its increasing contribution to total greenhouse gas emissions and the link to high levels of toxic pollutants in places with a high concentration of transport activity. The contribution of freight transport to these issues is already significant, and will become more so due to continued globalisation of supply chains and further global economic growth. Efforts to address these issues are already underway. Transport companies have for a long time focused on their own activities because it is good business sense. More recently, collaborative green freight programs have been developed. Several well-established industry-led green freight programs (Green Freight Europe, Lean & Green, ECO Stars etc.) developed to meet differing needs – operational data sharing to support benchmarking & reporting, efficiency improvement, reduction of toxic emissions in urban areas etc. Public authorities are also taking a greater interest because of targets to reduce transport CO2 emissions and improve air quality. They are investigating a wide range of mechanisms, from incentives to access restrictions, and from vehicle-level certification of emissions to legislation requiring reporting. There is much activity ongoing in this area; however, much of it takes place in isolation. This creates problems – for example, confusion over the role of different programs, disagreement over the most effective mechanisms that can be used to calculate and report emissions, where support is most needed to encourage certain behaviours, or ignorance of practical measures under development. The overall goal of LEARN is to establish co-ordinated networks of industry, government and civil society stakeholders and build on existing initiatives to drive consistent and transparent emissions measurement and reporting across the global logistics supply chain.

The 2019 Climate Change Act committed the UK to reducing its emissions of greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050. The 2019 UK Clean Air Strategy, sees "air pollution as one of the UK's biggest public health challenges", aims to secure clean growth whilst tackling air pollution through reducing emissions. Achieving these reductions in greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions will entail substantial reductions in use of fossil fuels and changes to the transport fleet over coming years as we make the transition to a 'low carbon economy'. This will also have an important benefit for health of improving levels of outdoor air pollution by reducing emissions from power plants, motor vehicles, wood/coal burning at home and other sources. However, another important climate change action is to improve energy efficiency in homes. Those measures typically entail reducing levels of ventilation to cut down heat losses from escape of heated air. In addition to helping improve winter indoor temperatures, this can be beneficial for human health because it reduces the penetration into the home of air pollutants from the outdoor environment. But it will increase indoor levels of air pollutants derived from sources inside the home - such as particles and gases generated by cooking, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) given off from fabrics and furnishings, cleaning and personal care products. The changes to indoor pollution levels from improved home energy efficiency may thus be overall positive or negative for the health of building occupants depending on the balance of effects on pollutants entering and leaving the indoor environment. That balance is likely to depend on the levels of outdoor pollutants, indoor air pollutant sources and activities that generate these, the form of the energy efficiency improvements, the behaviour of occupants and their vulnerability to air pollutants. People at particular risk are young children, the elderly, those with pre-existing illnesses, and those experiencing social deprivation. To improve understanding of these issues, we have created a new research network (acronym 'HEICCAAM'). This network brings together experienced and early career researchers from nine universities from disciplines as diverse as air quality measurement and modelling, building physics, behavioural science, health and health inequalities, education and policy. The network will also include representatives of the public, as well as stakeholders from the public sector, business/industry and non-government bodies - including Public Health England, Health Protection and NHS Scotland, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Age UK, the Passivhaus Trust, Good Homes Alliance, Edinburgh City Council, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers and the UK Met Office. The network will build evidence on the consequences for exposure to air pollution of actions aimed at tackling climate change and poor air quality, with particular focus on the home environment. Its aim is to provide underpinning research that can inform and influence policy and practice to safeguard human health. The network will include activities by six Working Groups tasked with generating a series of papers on relevant issues of science and policy. It will also undertake four small research projects aimed at improving understanding of key issues where there are knowledge gaps. It will have a particular focus on protecting the health of vulnerable groups and reduction of health inequities. Network members will have multiple interactions through electronic meetings, webinars, discussion groups and an annual meeting and workshop with a wider group of stakeholders. Through its activities, the network will help build long-term capability in interdisciplinary research in this area, including through the interactions with early career researchers, the development of new research plans, and linkage to other networks and existing research programmes.

TOPTEN ACT aims at empowering consumers to ACT: to purchase top energy-efficient products that will save energy over their lifetime. TOPTEN ACT develops a comprehensive market transformation strategy targeting consumers, manufacturers, retailers, large buyers, consumer associations and other key actors in 16 European countries, covering a combined population of 447 Mio inhabitants. It works with these actors to help them embrace and promote energy-efficient products, so that they become the natural choice for consumers. Project partners will: - Manage 16 Topten websites presenting up-to-date, consumer-oriented information to 2 Mio visitors per year. These websites will showcase top energy-efficient models in a number of product groups: domestic appliances, cooling and lighting equipment, consumer electronics, vehicles etc. They build on independent and reliable market surveys selecting the best available technologies (BATs) amongst hundreds of thousands of products. → Consumers identify top products, compare costs and understand the benefits of energy performance on their electricity bills and for the environment. - ‘Push’ this information to consumers through extensive use of the media, communications and partnerships with key organisations acting as multipliers. → Impartial information reaches consumers. - Work with retailers, leveraging on their unique market position, directly in contact with consumers about to ACT, to further increase purchases of energy-efficient product. → In just one click, consumers will find and buy top efficient products. TOPTEN ACT impacts are both quantitative —savings of 331 GWh/year triggered per million € invested— and qualitative: markets are more transparent, media report on top efficient products, multipliers relay the Topten message to their target groups, consumers change their using and purchasing behaviour, retailers change their range and highlight BAT products, manufacturers shift their production lines.