Galway City Council has been successful in securing a €1 million grant as part of the European Union’s NetZeroCities Pilot Cities programme.
Galway is the only Irish city participating in the programme and is one of a number of ‘pilot cities’ across Europe, which will work to reduce carbon across two years.
The council’s goal as part of the Pilot Cities application last year was to vastly reduce carbon emissions, focusing on the built environment and specifically on the retrofit of buildings.
The grant will focus on addressing barriers to rapid retrofitting in Galway, including lack of skilled contractors; high upfront cost of retrofitting; lack of awareness of existing incentives; long administrative & bureaucratic processes; and apathy of residents to retrofit.
Speaking about the initiative when the application was launched, Mayor of Galway, Cllr Clodagh Higgins, said the key goal of the pilot project in Galway City is to increase the number of retrofitted buildings.
“The pilot proposes a Retrofit Accelerator Programme to upskill contractors, incorporate learnings from post-retrofit performance management, and support behavioural change to increase people’s engagement around retrofitting,” she said.
