The majority of our current energy supply derives largely from traditional energy sources. As our demands for energy supply increases there is a growing need for exploring and developing new concepts for our energy sustainability requirements. Not only this, but also a reduction in the levels of harmful emissions and pollutants from an increase in the use of renewable energy sources and implementation of energy efficiency measures ultimately enhances the quality of citizens’ lives.

The European Commission is supporting local community projects demonstrating integrated energy concepts through the CONCERTO initiative. The CONCERTO initiative brings together around 28 local projects participating in 9 projects across Europe to demonstrate advancing energy concepts. It also adds avaluable European dimension to the projects’ ongoing demonstration activities. In this respect the European Commission is helping local communities to develop closer working relationswith each other on a European platform.

The CONCERTO initiative has straight forward objectives, yet very ambitious goals, which are set to be reached during the coming years. The ideal of CONCERTO is to try to solve some of the problems of our society by integrating already existing concepts and ideas to deliver better and more innovative solutions. CONCERTO actions will better prepare us to anticipate and deal with the energy challenges of the future, by compiling well documented experiences to form the basis for stricter standards and new regulations.

I would like to thank the participants for attending the ‘CONCERTO Opening’, the three days meeting which brought together over 100 representatives from the 28 local communities in Brussels, Belgium on 3rd to 5th July 2006. Participants gathered in Brussels to develop the CONCERTO vision statement for the work of the initiative for the years’ ahead. Moreover, on the second day parallel workshops were organised to cover issues of

common interest such as dissemination, technical monitoring, and socio-economic analysis and policy recommendations. Attendees were also able to request that specific issues be discussed during parallel working sessions on the third day, allowing the communities to gain maximum benefit from the CONCERTO initiative.

The CONCERTO Opening event signified the start of the process of the CONCERTO projects working together on a European level. Participants will benefit from the process of information transfer and cross sharing of experiences. By working together all actors will be better informed andunderstand each others projects. The meeting also helped to start with the implementation of arealistic and effective strategy for commondissemination purposes.

The European Commission strongly supports the CONCERTO initiative with the launch of CONCERTO Plus. CONCERTO Plus adds value tothe projects by developing, in particular, acommon dissemination strategy by using a range of effective communication tools, such as a brochure, Website, posters, newsletter… . It also contributes to the success of the initiative on ascientific, technical and policy level with further support from a coordinated approach to analysis and monitoring, in addition to facilitating networking and best practice transfer among the projects.

The aim of this newsletter is to inform about the latest developments within the context of the CONCERTO initiative, what is new within the partner projects and their observers, the communities’ demonstration activities and how the integration strategy is evolving to reach clearly set goals.