SmartKlub Leeds: Setting the Agenda.

Saving Carbon and Beating Fuel Poverty With a Sound Business Case.

Paul Connell – Co-Founder SmartKlub

Well it’s officially started, SmartKlub Leeds is now working with Leeds City Council to develop more and better community, city scale energy & energy efficiency projects for Leeds.

We launched at the end of April with our “Agenda Setting Session” and this blog explains how SmartKlub Leeds will work and captures some of your feedback from the session. A second blog “Defining the Future of Leeds Energy Needs” summarises the outputs and my thoughts from the session.

We had a fantastic response from the network and the event was really well attended.

This is a link to the photos we took at the event – maybe you can spot yourself and I think it really demonstrates the energy present in the room.

We were also keen to get your feedback about the event some of which you can see in this video

From a personal point of view we didn’t know what to expect, and have been overwhelmed with the the positive response that we have received from all of those involved so far. This gives us real confidence that we will be successful in the journey for SmartKlub Leeds.

What is SmartKlub Leeds?
SmartKlub is a business that works at a (local/regional) level with collective clear and transparent charter to connect cities and suppliers with a social perspective, in a way that creates more and better energy projects for our city. The Charter we have agreed for Leeds can be found on this link – and it will be used as the basis for our work in Leeds, and underpin the membership model for SmartKlub Leeds. Leeds, and every project within it, is unique and we will use the collective local understanding of the members of SmartKlub Leeds to build projects that work for the city, region and local community. The slides we have used to describe SmartKlub can be found here.

Are there any energy projects identified?
We have already hosted the first project co-creation event, in the second week in May, focused upon the 116 Tower Blocks of Housing Leeds – and how investment in new energy projects and approaches could be made. We will be publishing the outputs next week via a blog.

How will SmartKlub Leeds work?
The council is piloting SmartKlub to develop a new operating model for project co-production at a city scale with a focus upon creating a deliverable project pipeline. It works to rapidly conceptualise and develop a city’s overarching strategy and projects, moving it towards the goals of affordable energy, zero carbon and more sustainable, resilient communities.

Putting it more simply it brings councils, communities and businesses together to create projects that help cities improve the way they supply and use energy, for the benefit of everyone who lives there. Find out more on this link – How does it work.

The SmartKlub Leeds launch event on April 22 introduced the concept and also how it would work on a real life co-production opportunity with the council’s high rise tower blocks – see the slides below:

But what of the future for Leeds, find out more in our second blog in this series “Future Energy for Leeds” (Energy Futures For Leeds)