Following a baseline assessment of the motivations, interests and needs of European startups and young SMEs on energy efficiency, the core training and capacity building activities started with the development and launch of the Online Energy Saving Platform hosted on the START2ACT website. This platform provided the users the possibility to enhance their knowledge on energy efficiency at work through interactive and entertaining tools as well as a more comprehensive repository of tools and solutions:
• Knowledge Base served as the central repository of the project and the main resource to convey the understanding of energy and cost saving potential in offices to the target groups online.
• e-Learning course provided an engaging and hands-on experience on how to take action to save energy in an office through demonstrating real-life scenarios, interactive videos and exercises.
• Energy Saving Competition aimed to provide a motivating framework for SME employees to change their behaviour by making them conscious of their energy consumption at work and encouraging them to reduce this in a variety of ways.
In addition to these online tools, face-to-face activities were also implemented:
• Energy Efficiency Business Breakfasts were held, providing information on energy management at offices and an action plan to help save energy.
• On-site Capacity Building Activities helped young SMEs in identifying and embracing measures for energy efficiency at their companies through a series of visits by the START2ACT partners.
• Sustainable Energy Mentoring activities helped engage young, innovative companies at an early stage, so they would understand the importance of energy efficiency while growing their businesses.
On the Online Energy Saving Platform, the Knowledge Base and the e-Learning have been the most popular, while a higher level of interaction with the target groups was achieved through the Energy Saving Competition.
Over the course of the project, 60 business breakfasts were organised, reaching a total of 1,059 people. The participants represented 794 organisations in total, of which 377 were young SMEs and startups. 306 SMEs were trained on-site, and 433 startups, representing 2,019 entrepreneurs, were mentored via 71 mentoring sessions in nine START2ACT countries.
Extensive dissemination activities and targeted promotional campaigns were carried out to reach the project’s target groups and engage them in the project’s activities as well as to stimulate the uptake of the many valuable outputs of the project by the stakeholders and end-users. START2ACT and its results received extensive visibility and outreach both at the partner countries and beyond. Furthermore, strong collaboration was established with other projects and initiatives, leading to effective cross-promotional actions and synergies.
Open access has been provided to START2ACT Training Kits, Handbooks, ToT Manuals, Baseline Assessment Report, Report on the Assessment of the Behaviour of the Target Groups, other public deliverables, and most importantly, the Knowledge Base and e-Learning. Such a wide selection of free materials on energy efficient practices and cost saving measures for SMEs and startups realises the added value of the project yielded after its completion to wider audiences beyond its target groups. To this end, all of these materials and online tools and platforms will be maintained beyond the project and further promoted by all partners at relevant occasions and through their networks.
