Written by Gyorgy Sumeghy, Advocacy Manager, Habitat for Humanity Europe, Middle East and Africa

The title of this new website captures very nicely that Habitat for Humanity International’s main focus when it comes to the energy efficiency of residential buildings are: the people. All our efforts are focusing on combatting energy poverty so that families should get  warmer homes and save money on their heating bills as a result of the retrofitting of their buildings.

We started to address residential energy efficiency more than 5 years ago with the support of USAID. We have run projects in Macedonia, Armenia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. We learned a lot from these projects and we also worked with researchers to better understand the context of residential energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe. We also engaged with many stakeholders both at the national level and at the European level and learned that our experience is worth sharing. That’s why we endeavored to develop a knowledge platform and launched this website to foster further knowledge sharing and policy dialogue among all the relevant actors in residential energy efficiency.

The current English version of this website will be soon complemented with an Armenian and Bosnian subpage targeting home-owner associations offering practical information how to start the retrofitting of their own buildings.

Because we all want to get warm homes!

György Sümeghy received his MA in English and Hungarian Literature in 1995 in Budapest. He spent ten years in public education and later at a private business college. Based on his management experience in education and volunteerism and interest in social development he joined Habitat for Humanity Hungary as National Director in 2005. Under his leadership, Habitat for Humanity Hungary has become an advocacy led organization where field projects support strong awareness raising and advocacy initiatives to change housing policies in the country. Gyorgy joined HFHI EMEA in 2013 to lead regional advocacy initiatives and support national advocacy programs in the EMEA region. He represents HFHI in Brussels and all over Europe at regional conferences and meetings.