The ELEEP Network, which is run and operated by Ecologic Institute, Berlin, Ecologic Institute, Washington DC, and the Atlantic Council of the United States, has received grant funding from the European Commission and the Robert Bosch Stiftung to continue operations through mid-2014.
With the funding from the European Commission, ELEEP Network will launch a Transatlantic Civil Society Dialogue on energy and climate change issues. The Dialogue will consist of three study tours in 2013, and a study tours and an ELEEP Conference in Brussels in 2014. The first study tour in April 2013 will highlight efforts to encourage residential and industrial energy efficiency measures in the UK. In June, a group of ELEEP Members will travel to the United States to investigate city and regional actions to promote sustainable transportation and mobility; this tour will serve as a counterpoint to last year’s tour to Stuttgart and Paris on the same topic. The final study tour of the year as part of the Dialogue will take Members to Germany and Poland to examine how companies and policymakers are promoting distributed electricity generation and combined heat and power plants. The last tour will culminate with participation in the UN climate negotiations in Warsaw.
In addition to the study tours of the Transatlantic Civil Society Dialogue, a dedicated, public website for the ELEEP Network will be created, where Members will debate issues of the day and be able to publish substantive contributions to those debates. Further, the Members will be incentivized to develop collaborative work products (op-eds, academic articles, etc.) that contribute to transatlantic cooperation and enhance understanding of initiatives taking place on both continents. The Network operators will convene an ELEEP Conference in Washington DC in September 2013. Additionally, ELEEP Members will have access to ELEEP Grants to propose and carry out their own small work projects on pressing issues of environmental and energy policy. The latter activities will be supported by the contribution from the Robert Bosch Stiftung.