By Manuel Pueyo, EU Sustainable Energy Week

This year we have good reason to expect that a rich range of events for EUSEW will be organised all over Europe. Thousands of organisations and individuals will participate in the EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) by hosting, attending or collaborating with an Energy Day. Energy Days may take different forms (conferences, open door events, presentations, exhibitions, performances, etc.) but they all have one thing in common: they promote, innovate, and enrich the debate about energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
Sustainable Energy Week is an initiative of the European Commission that first took place in 2006. It is designed to spread best practices, inspire new ideas and build alliances to help meet the EU’s energy and climate goals. Beginning in 2006 with a single sustainable energy debate in Brussels, EUSEW’s participation has been increasing significantly since then. 73 events took place in 2008 while 328 events were organised in 2010. Last year, 720 activities took place across Europe.
We believe that anyone can be part of this project with little effort. There are two ways to be part of EUSEW. You can organise an Energy Day activity or event in Brussels or in your city, town or region between 18 and 22 June 2012 and/or register to one of these events as an attendee.
EUSEW12 coincides with Global Wind Day (15 June). We want to create synergies and join the thousands of people around the world to celebrate the power of wind: all Global Wind Day events will be uploaded into our webpage. We believe Global Wind Day is a great initiative and we would like it to be highly visible.

This year, expectations are high again. 547 events have already been published in 41 countries while 2500 people are already registered. We want to achieve the target of 1000 events. Your help is needed! If you have already participated in the EUSEW during previous years and are willing to collaborate again, you can also encourage other organisations from your country to do the same.

Italy, Spain, Romania and Poland were the countries where a significant participation was registered in 2011. This year, Spain and Italy show again an increasing interest in EUSEW with the added presence of Germany and Sweden.

Participating in the EUSEW has several advantages for you and your institution. You will attract media attention, you will be able to improve the image of your organisation and, most important of all, your events will reach international visibility. We have the support of the EUSEW Secretariat and we are looking forward to setting higher goals every year.