Talk to residents on adapting their homes to the energy transition

Gas-free homes

The municipality of Purmerend is at the forefront in The Netherlands in pursuing the target of 100% gas-free homes. That is quite a challenge for all stakeholders. Purmerend Gas-Free, a partnership between municipality and energy suppliers, is entering into a dialogue with residents. What better than QandR to facilitate that conversation.

Challenge:
Talk to residents online, but later physically as well

Method:
Online participation meetings with all work formats (except sticky notes)

Number of participants:
Approx 10 per session, but sessions with 50 as well

The main attraction of QandR for us was that we did not have to choose between online and offline. Wherever this crisis may lead, because QandR uses the smartphone as starting point of the interaction, the tool is equally effective in either scenario.

Joke Dijkstra, Strategisch adviseur bij Purmerend Gasvrij

That gas needs to be phased out in Dutch homes is a well known fact by now. In Purmerend they have taken up the challenge, with a pilot in the Overwhere-South suburb, and an ongoing project, Purmerend Gas-Free, that informs residents about the possibilities and allows them to express their wishes and objections. In this moment in time it had to be primarily online, and fortunately that works quite well with QandR. And, just before summer, QandR was used in physical meetings as well.

In several online sessions virtually all QandR work formats were used to really engage in conversation with the residents. The direct and intuitive interaction ensured, as always, that everyone could have their say and provided good starting points for further discussion.

Purmerend Gas-Free has taken a QandR subscription so they can use the tool as they see fit, for this project and the next, or for any internal sessions that may benefit from QandR's interactivity.

Municipalities as well as consultancy agencies use QandR to involve citizens and experts with the challenges in living and working environments. Read more on our page on citizen participation. For those involved in sustainability challenges it is worth checking out the reporting of Stadsdialoog Nieuwe Energie (City Dialogue New Energy, in Dutch) of the municipality of Utrecht. It contains an aggregation of 11 QandR sessions with a total of 235 participants, that have all given their input in the City Dialog New Energy.