the CREST project is partly funded by the Channel-France Interreg IVA programme via ERDF funds.
The CREST project proposes a new, fully integrated approach to the necessary energy changes in existing buildings and their eco-use in the Channel area.
CREST proposes to focus this approach on the educational community and to raise and train the next generation of decision makers and supporters, having thoroughly integrated both the green building energy efficiency chain with the use of energies.
Duration : october 2012 – june 2015
Partners : SCIC Pays de Dinan, Cambridgeshire County Council, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, Etudes et Chantiers Bretagne et Pays de Loire, groupe CESI.
On the basis of exemplary actions, the consortium of academic institutions, local communities and training organisations brought together in CREST will base its activities on the principle of the “living lab” or living laboratory. This will be at the heart of the community, they will be able to test “live”dedicated services, tools or new uses and involve early users in the design of new products/uses.
The educational buildings will require in the first instance the awareness of each user in regards to consumption generated by their needs and habits and tests will be implemented. These tests will not only be related to technical issues on energy linked to habits of the buildings’ occupants and the possibilities of using the tools of mobile control (smartphones applications), but also on psychological and behavioural barriers. It will be shown how these can be overcome so that the proposed changes in habits at the workplace are accepted. The degree of acceptance of man-machine interfaces will be also reviewed.
The data set will create a truly cross-border response to the shared challenges of climate change. The results obtained in this living laboratory will enable the development of practical, short and interactive training programs with or without a diploma. These programs will be dedicated to different audiences and age groups, and set a real educational path to environmental themes, related to intelligent building, energy efficiency, and more broadly energy and sustainable development for a younger audience. The business community will also be targeted and they will participate in these formations and benefit from the living lab test results.
The living lab will also be publicised and disseminated to a vast community, through its own participants, external participants and volunteers convinced by this full-scale test. They will engage with the CREST partners in a real approach to energy efficiency, sustainable energy and green building or retrofit.
