Pulling into beautiful Tallinn on a very sunny morning after a hearty breakfast on the ferry seemed like the ideal way to arrive into a country and armed with my three Estonian words, I was ready to talk about windfarms (which I didn`t know the Estonian word for)!

Estonia has set itself above average targets for renewable energy production by 2020 (25% of overall energy and currently it's at around 1.5%) and although there's optimisim that the targets can be met; there are also huge concerns around finance to deliver and overall public acceptance of wind turbines (which they hope will deliver approx 25% of overall demands).  Based in Tallinn, I met with a number of organisations who are paving the way towards sustainability.  Jann Tepp of the Estonian Wind Power Association explained that they had municipalities who were keen to work with the community in developing joint wind projects, and a possible model by which the communities could finance their shares in the developments, were by offsetting guarantee against their mortgages.   

Below - old meets new!  The old style windmills still play a valuable role in many parts of Europe

Anne Kivinukk from REC Estonia, (part of a network of national environmental agencies ) explained the work that they were doing around education and awareness initiatives in the country.  The target audience had mainly been young people with programmes such as "Kyoto in my home" (outlining energy efficiency in the home) and "Change LAB" - looking out behavioural and attitudinal changes around environmental issues.  Anne said that the Estonians were traditionally very tied to nature and interested in the environment but a great deal of damage, by way of pollution, had occurred during the Soviet occupation and that the environment was still recovering from these.  Problems such as Military bases simply discarding oil and petroleum into the ground and the lack of regulation around oil shale waste (which makes up the bulk of the energy source in Estonia) had taken its toll over the years.

Right below - Soviet era housing block, connected to the district heating system but shoddily built and in need of effeciency improvements

When it comes to community involvement programmes in energy efficiency and housing however, Estonia makes a very interesting case study.  The old apartment blocks built (rather hasitly) in the Soviet era make up the bulk of the housing (over 75% of the population live in such apartments) and they are inherently ineffecient.  Mirja Adler, Head of the Housing Division for "Kredex" (a part-owned by government investment company) explained the grant programmes in place for Housing Associations (the collective individual apartment owners within the buildings) to make environmental improvements.  To organise improvement works within the buildings, the tenants meet and vote for how much they can invest and receive.  This sort of democratic system is working well so far and the next step is how the tenants can perhaps make more than just the required changes for efficiency and look at things like solar or ground source heating etc (which a number of associations are beginning to do).