Last Monday, March 2nd, CUBE 2020 candidates gathered at Natixis Liberté’s building in Charenton (south-eastern outskirts of Paris) to celebrate the launch of this year’s energy-saving race!

252 buildings are participating in this year’s edition of CUBE 2020, the Energy Saving Championship to tackle energy and CO2 reduction goals and prepare for the decade’s challenges. The competition is a way to reward tertiary (non-residential) buildings that have reduced their energy consumption the most during the year of the competition, largely due to awareness and behavioral changes as well as improved usage of existing technology and the addition of light technological improvements in buildings.

New candidates this edition make up a wide variety of tertiary activities including: Korian (retirement homes and care centers), Carrefour (supermarkets), the CROUS of Bordeaux (student lodging and cafeterias), the Banque de France (national bank), Artelia (multi-disciplinary consulting), Engie (French industrial energy group), the Prefecture of Ardèche (local prefectures), and the University of French Polynesia, among many others. They are all participating in order to achieve national (binding) consumption reduction targets of -40% consumption by 2030.

Regarding our “legacy candidates”, those who have participated in multiple editions as a way to boost their management, the CUBE 2020 team is delighted to see once again: Generali Real Estate, the RATP, the University of Bordeaux, the University of Poitiers, BNP Paribas, Orange, Natixis, Poste Immo, the Paris Climate Agency and La Trait’s City Hall. 

During the launch event last week, participants received advice from the past edition winners: technical, managerial as well as communications-related tips to further prepare each team’s next steps. Indeed, the big winners of the “Presentation and Communications” prize last year – Orange, Natixis and the RATP – shared their recipes to CUBE-success as well as what to avoid throughout the competition year!

In short, all of the elements needed to surf through the energy saving competition and appropriate the Tertiary Decree to each tertiary building’s context. Cédric Borel, managing director of the IFPEB, explained the latest regulatory news from the tertiary sector and was accompanied by Pierre Falconnier, on behalf of the French Environmental Ministry, to discuss how the State aims to and is currently applying the Decree to its own public properties.

As for the Tertiary decree and its decree of application: the working groups on the “Absolute values” section resumed meetings in February 2020, and seek to determine the sectoral thresholds and usage intensity indicators (or the way in which the building’s activity influences consumption) in order to isolate energy progress.

This is calculation will also be carried out by OPERAT (Observation of Energy Performance, Renovation and Tertiary Actions), a platform that will be operated by the ADEME (National French Energy Agency) to certify the (mandatory) compliance to national energy savings’ targets. The CUBE 2020 team has a message: our candidates are ready!

Project Contacts

Amanda Garcia – Head of CUBE 2020 & international development –  amanda.garcia [a] ifpeb.fr – T. +33 1 85 76 51 20

Alicia Engel – Head of Communications & PR – alicia.engel [a] ifpeb.fr