SHIFFT aimed to support the shift towards a low-carbon economy by accelerating the market adoption of sustainable heating solutions in the 2 Seas area. The project objective was to reduce CO2 emissions in the built environment by reducing the use of fossil fuels in the heating methods of existing household and community buildings.

The project aimed to implement sustainable heating solutions replace fossil technologies for the heating of homes and community buildings involved in the project, stimulating the adoption of low-carbon technologies.

The project targeted a quantified reduction of 3983 ton CO2 emission/year. This was based on a reduction of 561 ton CO2/y resulting from 4 direct investments by partners in residential and community buildings. This also included a reduction of 3422 tonCO2/year as a result of the installation of sustainable heating systems and the adoption of more sustainable heating behaviour by 4295 households in their homes in intensive co-creation processes in partner territories.

The challenge of the transition to sustainable heating of homes and community buildings is shared by cities, communities, the housing sector, and service providers in all countries within the 2 Seas area. Individual actors cannot easily accelerate market adoption of sustainable heating techniques, but a strong cross-border partnership can. 

The SHIFFT partnership included all key sectors: local authorities, housing corporation, public care providers, local energy agencies, sustainable energy business networks and academic expertise. Combining this expertise from 4 countries allowed the project to come to effective solutions with validity for all territorial and institutional contexts in the 2 Seas area.

Through this, the partnership was able to gain a much more thorough understanding of the core issues faced by each country under different parameters. For example, the international cooperation allowed for the identification of financial and non-financial policy options for countries, and subsequent distinct variations in approaches. This meant that the guidelines produced by the project were broader and better informed, with more policy options identified due to the wider set of inputs.

The collaboration also allowed for the more effective implementation of the pilot schemes in each country. The co-creation pilot in Bruges wouldn’t have been possible without inspiration from Buurkracht and TU Delft in the Netherlands. Middelburg and Exeter were also essential for this in the facilitation of a heat zoning plan. 

The support given to Middelburg from the academic partners led to a higher quality of deliverables, and more impact in terms of CO2 reduction. For their investment pilot, the cross-border cooperation sped up the process, leading to an innovative heat solution for a sports complex, which created an outstanding example for the region.

The pilot in Norwich received a lot of support in putting together a co-creation plan. The input from Delft University (NL) was important since they brought a lot of skills and knowledge not available in their organisation. The international collaboration also gave the opportunity to compare the different technical options used in the demonstration sites.