ARV – Climate Positive Circular Communities

The overall aim of the EU-funded ARV project is to demonstrate and validate attractive, resilient, and affordable solutions that significantly speed-up deep energy renovations and deployment of energy and climate measures in the construction and energy industries. The project is working towards the implementation of climate-positive circular communities in Europe, focusing on net zero-emission buildings and neighbourhoods.

ARV will provide guidelines and a policy framework for future energy-efficient, circular, and digital solutions in the construction industry.

Vision & Objectives

The vision of the ARV project is to contribute to speedy wide scale implementation of Climate Positive Circular Communities (CPCC) where people can thrive and prosper for generations to come. The overall aim of the ARV project is to boost the building renovation rate and to enable rapid and wide-scale deployment of CPCCs around Europe.

To achieve this, the ARV project employs a novel concept relying on a combination of 3 conceptual pillars, 6 demonstration sites, and 9 thematic focus areas.

The Three Pillars

• Integration: Considering the integration between people, the buildings, and the community energy system.
• Circularity: This is not only about recycling and reuse, but also to engage all stakeholders along the value chain to help create a circular economy by exploiting financial incentive and total life cycle costs, and to create viable business models considering the distribution of burdens and costs. 
• Simplicity: Creating solutions that are simple to design, construct, and use, e.g. by the help of digital tools.

Demonstration Sites

A range of innovations that are key to achieving climate positive circular communities are showcased in six large-scale demonstration sites in Europe. The demonstration sites communities have been carefully selected to represent the different European climates and contexts, and due to their high ambitions in environmental, social and economic sustainability. Special attention is given to social housing and public buildings in transformation projects. The sites are located in Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. Together, the projects demonstrate more than 50 innovations in more than 150,000 m2 of buildings.

Thematic Focus Areas

The project has defined 9 thematic focus areas:

1. Demonstrate a replicable planning framework for efficient CPCC implementation.
2. Demonstrate community engagement platforms for awareness, occupant insight, and co-creation.
3. Design and demonstrate integrated circular buildings with high energy performance, low emissions, good indoor climate, and architectural quality.
4. Demonstrate seamless construction/renovation processes for quick, simple, and efficient workflows.
5. Demonstrate innovative on-site energy generation and storage.
6. Demonstrate smart and flexible operation of buildings and energy systems.
7. Monitor and validate ARV solutions through secure and continuous measurements.
8. Facilitate speedy scale-up via policy incentives, regulations, financing mechanisms, and business models.
9. Communicate and disseminate ARV activities and accelerate solution exploitation.

Partners & Acknowledgment

The project is led by NTNU, Department of Architecture and Technology, and has 35 partners from around Europe. It is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101036723.

Key Partners

NTNU | SINTEF | Architects’ Council of Europe | Ayuntament De Palma De Mallorca | Bos Installatiewerken Bv | Buro De Haan | Center Denmark | Czech Technical University – CVUT | Danfoss A/S | Danmarks Tekniske Universitet – DTU | Dolomiti Energia | ENFOR | Eurac Research | Gemeente Utrecht | Green Digital Finance Alliance | HABITECH DTTN | Distretto Tecnologico Trentino | Housing Europe | Instituto Balear De La Vivienda | IREC | iwell | Me X Architects Bv | Metrovacesa, Sa | Nano Power As | Oslo Kommune | Politecnico Di Torino | ProjectZero | Rc Panels Bv | Sistemes Avancats D Energia Solar Termica Sccl | Sonderborg Andelsboligforening | Statutarni Mesto Karvina | Stichting Bo-Ex 91 | Stichting Hogeschool Utrecht | Università degli Studi di Trento | Universiteit Utrecht - UU | Woonin

Reports: ARV Key Results

Library · ARV (external link)