After a long period without traveling because of the pandemic restrictions, GreenBuilding Spanish partner had the opportunity to meet face-to-face in Irbid, Jordan, with the Jordanian partner, on 17th of November, 2021. In this occasion, the BETA Technological Centre (BETA TC) of the Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya (Uvic-UCC), the Spanish member of the consortium, was able to visit the facilities of the Greater Municipality of Irbid, the building which will be refurbished thanks to ENI CBC Med programme.

Before the field visit, a representation of the BETA TC held a meeting at the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) with part of the team involved in this project, where they discussed future possibilities to increase the impact of the project experience. Later,the  meeting took place with technical and political representatives of this administration.

After the welcome of the Mayor of the Greater Municipality of Irbid, the Urban Planner and Director of Planning Department and other technical officers detailed all the progress made in the energy refurbishment of the building. The occasion was also a good moment to discuss about their needs in terms of technical challenges and possible synergies with the initiatives related with energy transition in which the BETA TC is an active member. The BETA TC is well positioned in different Mediterranean-based networks, and works regularly with entities that are relevant in this region. For example, the Union for the Mediterranean, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) or the WWF (World Wide Fund of Nature). For this reason is easy to create synergies among initiatives or projects that are interested to be in touch with each other. The main support for the municipality in terms of technical knowledge about energy efficiency is provided by the expert team of University of Patras. The BETA TC have different areas of work, and two of them could be interesting for the municipality. In the first place, the BETA TC have a team specialized in the calculation of environmental footprints. Secondly, the center is also gaining experience in projects focused in the capitalization of results, so it could be interesting to discuss strategies that will contribute in the spread of the Irbid experience in other similar public administrations.

It has to be mentioned that the building that hosts the offices of the Greater Municipality of Irbid is beginning to be relatively old, so it was built at a time when the available measures for energy efficiency were not the same as they are today. The refurbishment have three main points: improvement of lighting systems, improvement of temperature regulation systemsand improvement of the insulation of the building. Thanks to the project, the building managers also hope to be able to train municipal workers to involve them as an active part in improving energy efficiency.