CEESEN-BENDER Final Conference: Shaping a Just and Inclusive Energy Transition

In 2023, the University of Tartu became involved in the newly funded CEESEN-BENDER project, aimed to support vulnerable homeowners and renters in Soviet-era multi-apartment buildings. Now, three years later, the impactful results of this international cooperation have been presented at the project’s final conference, held in Zagreb in May 2026.

The conference brought together energy poverty experts to discuss best practices, digital tools, and financing models designed to support vulnerable households in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Project coordinator Miljenka Kuhar, the Executive Director of the Society of Sustainable Development Design (DOOR), opened the conference by highlighting how the energy renovation of multi-apartment buildings can drive a just and inclusive energy transition.

“The issue of just and inclusive energy transition is no longer only a matter of long-term climate or energy goals. It has become the key issue of social stability, security and resilience of our society,” said Kuhar.

Across Europe, buildings account for around 40% of the region’s total energy consumption, yet the annual renovation rate sits at just 1% of building stock. Matija Eppert, the project manager of CEESEN-BENDER, emphasized that the project’s core mission was to ensure that energy-vulnerable households are not left behind in the renovation process.

The project helped combat energy poverty in multiple ways, including training over 3,500 people on the benefits of energy renovation, and triggering of €32 million in renovation investments within five years after the project closes.

The University of Tartu’s Role

Within the project, the University of Tartu team is responsible for one of the most critical outcomes: designing and testing a digital tool (a statistical model) that helps prioritize buildings for renovation based on socioeconomic, energy consumption, and technical data.

Additionally, the University of Tartu leads a work package investigating the obstacles to apartment building renovations, potential mitigation strategies, and the specific needs of energy-vulnerable households. The university is also compiling a comprehensive report with recommendations on how to apply the lessons learned from CEESEN-BENDER in future initiatives.

Speaking at Zagreb conference, Kaspar Alev from the Estonian Ministry of Climate noted that vulnerable households are not only difficult to identify, but many will never actively ask for help, even when support is available.

“Only around 40% of people that can apply for social security in Estonia apply for it. There’s fear, passiveness, pride – all different types of reasons,” explained Alev.

According to project manager Indrek Kuusk, the statistical tool delivered by the university introduces a completely data-driven approach to selecting buildings for renovation, thereby increasing the efficiency of funding allocation: “Our analyst Mariia Chebotareva has created a statistical tool that uses available digital socioeconomic data, energy consumption data and technical data of buildings to generate rankings. This allows us to find buildings that are the least energy-efficient and have occupants most likely to suffer from high levels of energy poverty.”

Without this tool, grants for renovation have frequently been awarded not to the buildings that need them most, but simply to those where the occupants were the most active when applying.

Confronting "Hidden Energy Poverty"

Eva Suba from Climate Alliance said that in CEE, the concept of “hidden energy poverty” presents a central challenge to energy renovations.

“One out of four Central European residents is energy poor, but because of different data situations and indicators, they do not appear in official statistics. Policies designed on average assumptions risk missing the most vulnerable of us all,” said Suba.

This gap creates a paradox where subsidies exist but consistently fail to reach those who need them most due to unreliable data, high renovation costs, municipal capacity shortfalls, and a general failure to communicate in plain terms. To fix this, Suba offered five policy recommendations: high-quality data collection, human-language communication, support for one-stop shops, workforce training, and the partnership principle.

“Renovation works when support system works for people and when the people trust the system. So if we build a support system, we must do this for the people, not for the policy documents,” Suba emphasized.

You can watch a full recording of CEESEN-BENDER Conference here.

CEESEN-BENDER is a three-year project funded by the LIFE programme of the European Union, receiving support in the amount of €1.85 million. It operated across five Central and Eastern European countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, and Romania. The goal of the project was to assist pilot regions with the renovation process by identifying the key obstacles and creating trustworthy support services that include homeowners, their associations, and building managers.