Driving energy transition and decarbonisation in production plants. Making rational use of energy for heating, lighting and production processes and optimize use of resources helps the SMEs to contribute with the environment and to reduce their energy costs. It also has an impact in the selling opportunities of the company, as the CO2 footprint is becoming a requirement in the supply chain and financing of some industries.

The Collective Self-Consumption project involving the Shopping Center (both common parts and stores) is aimed at taking advantage of the benefits given by sharing self-generated electricity from renewable sources so as to minimize energy expenditure and electricity use. The ambition of the project consists in devising a good practice based on promoting renewable sources, reducing CO2 emissions and increasing levels of energy savings and efficiency, thus providing concrete benefits to participants.

"We want to leave the world a better place to the next generation. Therefore we aspire to become the most sustainable business park in the Netherlands" This is the ambition of IPKW, a former AkzoNobel industrial estate from the 1940s. The business park specifically focuses on housing energy-related companies - from start-ups to multinationals. The site accommodates parties involved in sustainability and innovation in energy and environmental technology. When Veolia committed itself to the site as operator of the utilities, the ambition arose for the area to become a testing ground for the most sustainable business park in the Netherlands in terms of energy, waste, mobility, buildings, and people. IPKW and Veolia see this as a joint task. The business park is considered as an ecosystem for work and education.

SMEs are facing several barriers, including economic, informational and organisational ones which often hinder the implementation of energy efficiency measures. Besides this, the legislative framework does not motivate SMEs to implement an energy audit or to employ an energy manager. Considering this, training an internal technical staff could lead to several benefits which will be presented below.

RECs implementation is an important milestone in furthering the drivers of energy transition and decarbonization. The Energy Community project involving the Commercial Park is aimed at taking advantage of the benefits given by sharing self-generated electricity from renewable sources. The REC main objective is to generate social, environmental and economic benefits not only for its members but also for neighboring territories. The ambition is to develop good practice so as to promote renewable sources, reduce CO2 emissions and increase energy saving and efficiency

To demonstrate that it works better to make business parks more sustainable collectively, rather than individually, is the mission of the Sustainable Business Parks project in Venlo, which is focused on energy and climate adaptation. With a blank sheet as a project plan, €1.8 million was raised from the EU's European Regional Development Fund and the province of Limburg in 2019 for collective energy and climate adaptation sustainability projects. Among other things, five pilot projects to be implemented before the end of 2023, will demonstrate that collective sustainability works better than individual sustainability. The project is led by a project manager.

"A business park that generates more energy than it consumes": Business Park Schiebroek Rotterdam is taking this ambitious step by, among other things, realising a cooperative solar park.

To be independent from energy suppliers while creating leverage for sustainability and green energy. This is what GreenBiz IJmond is enabling with GreenBiz Energy. The aim of GreenBiz Energy is to bring together local energy supply and demand for sustainably generated energy. Each business park in the IJmond region contains several green energy producers and consumers, who maintain their sustainably generated energy on their own business park and trade it among themselves. Customers therefore buy their energy directly from fellow entrepreneurs.