EnergiaKörTér (EnergyRoundSquare)

The EnergyRoundSquare team, together with the other members of KörTér – Environmentally Conscious Circle in Újbuda, is engaged in several environmental activities: greening our lifestyle, raising awareness and draw attention to the problems of the 11th district: overbuilding, increased road traffic, lack of green space, climate adaptation. We have planted trees in Kelenföld several times, and this autumn we planted shrubs in Albertfalva. In September, we organised the second edition of the Bornemissza Green Civic Picnic, where we repeated last year’s successful event with a Home Energy Exhibition, gave energy saving tips based on the experience of the KörTér Greendependent Energy Saving Competition (where we came second), installed sixteen artificial nests on the former public transport’s building, we exhibited old and new photos of Kelenföld, held a cargo bike demonstration together with Cargonomia, organised a composting game with the Lemérem Packaging-Free Shop, made a puppet of vegetables, did some physics experiments with the Atomcsill team, gave a presentation on urban birds with MME and visited the Galvani Infopoint with Kiserdővédők (an urban forest defender group from Kispest).

We regularly take a stand on urban development issues affecting the district: we have written several letters to the Municipality on the overbuilding of brownfield sites in the district and we are also pressing the RCDs on the Galvani Bridge environmental permit lawsuit. We hope that our work has played a part in the District Council’s decision to introduce a change ban in the barren parts of the district to prevent further overbuilding. We also acted against the sale of the Kelenföld City Centre, where a 2-storey centre providing affordable services would have been replaced by an 8-9 storey mall or office block. At the end of the extremely hot summer of 2022, we wrote a letter to the municipality about climate protection in housing estates, making proposals to protect against overheating in summer.  We developed suggestions on how the municipality’s autumn package for schoolchildren could be more environmentally friendly and beneficial for families. Our proposal resulted in a more useful pack for children in autumn 2022.

The Kelenföld Vegetable Circle, whose members partly overlap with KörTér, helps us to green our own lifestyle and where we buy organic or chemical-free vegetables, fruit, dairy products, and bakery goods directly from the producers. Greendependent’s Energy Saving Competition also helped us to become more energy efficient, and we shared our experiences with other KörTér members and the audience at the Bornemissza Green Picnic.

KörTér – Environmentally Conscious Circle in Újbuda is a member of the Új Koma Háló (network of local eco-communities) and cooperates with other NGOs in the district

Together we can achieve much more than we can individually.

Ilka Szécsi

Our Story

Where/How did you first get the idea to start your energy community?

A few friends and professionals established the KörTér eco-community in 2019 to voluntarily green the district. KörTér is working on: in addition to showing local, green alternatives, we emphasise the role of communities in the transition towards sustainability.
In 2021, we decided to participate in the Energy Saving Competition for Energy Communities organised by Greendependent. 5 families from the community entered the competition. By entering, our aim was to expand our knowledge of behaviour change leading to energy savings and to see how our previous “literature” knowledge works in practice. It was also important to strengthen our existing personal relationships by working together in the competition. During the competition, the Circle itself focused a little more on energy saving, as we talked about our current tasks and experiences at each meeting, so that even members not participating in the competition could keep up to date with what we were doing in our households, why and how, which was enough to motivate others to save energy.

What were the biggest challenges in the process? 

Perhaps the biggest challenge during the almost six months of the competition was to keep motivated, as regular meters-readings and recording the results were not sufficiently inspiring for everyone, so we were able to finish the competition successfully by encouraging each other. We also learnt a lot from each other during the competition, and the different decisions we made in different life situations were an incentive for the rest of the team to work together more effectively. The competition has strengthened our community, so we can continue our previous activities even better, and we are more motivated in our other activities. It is very useful to be able to draw strength from the enthusiasm of others because everyone has a different point when they get a little tired and it is the strength of the community that keeps everyone going.

What are your suggestions/advice for others who want to set up an energy community? 

It is worth to offer the possibility of joining among friends, acquitances, and colleagues who live nearby, and the positive results will forge the team together!