The City Municipality of Koper, as part of the implementation of the CO ADRIA project—which is co-financed by the European Union under the Interreg VI-A Italy–Slovenia Program— organized and successfully held an event on March 26, 2026, at the Praetorian Palace in the center of Koper. The event was dedicated to educating and raising public awareness about the importance of territorial cooperation and climate neutrality, as well as a cross-border consultation on achieving climate neutrality in the region by 2050.
The CO ADRIA – Northern Adriatic EGTC project to promote climate neutrality by 2050: Strategic Initiatives for Energy Efficiency in the Region – has, in the past period, brought together cross-border partners with the aim of developing concrete solutions to improve energy efficiency and accelerate the transition to a climate-neutral society.
On behalf of the project partner, the City Municipality of Koper, Sabina Mozetič, Head of the Office for Economy, Agriculture, and Development, and project coordinator Boštjan Žlak addressed the participants. They emphasized the importance of a joint approach to institutional cooperation at the cross-border level and addressing cross-border issues in the field of energy solutions and energy communities, and highlighted the activities of the City Municipality of Koper in achieving climate neutrality in the region by 2050.
Following the presentation of the CO-ADRIA project’s activities, guest speakers guided participants through the benefits of energy communities (Janez Melink, GOLEA Goriška Local Energy Agency), advanced energy management systems (Darjo Uršič, M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, ENEDAR d.o.o.), an overview of best practices through the case study of the Zeleni Hrastnik Cooperative (Luka Mofardin, Focus, Association for Sustainable Development), and a presentation of the H2READY project: The Hydrogen Future of the Cross-Border Region (Suzana Vidmar Kovšca and Marta Stopar, GOLEA).
The event concluded with a symposium on climate neutrality by 2050, at which two distinguished guests—Prof. Dr. Gubina F. Andrej, director of the Innovation and Development Institute at the University of Ljubljana, who, in a lecture titled “Community Energy: How Can Collaboration Be the Key to the 4D Energy Revolution?” , presented the role of shared energy as a key element in the future development of energy systems, particularly in the context of the so-called 4D revolution, which encompasses the decentralization, digitalization, decarbonization, and democratization of energy supply.
The event was thematically concluded by Dr. Liliana Vižintin, a researcher at the Koper Science and Research Center, Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Studies, who guided us through the perspectives of climate change, nature preservation, and community-based approaches to accelerating climate neutrality in a lecture titled From Knowledge to Practice: How Nature-Based Solutions and Community Approaches Accelerate the Path to Climate Neutrality.
The CO ADRIA project thus successfully concludes an important chapter in cross-border cooperation and lays a solid foundation for further strategic initiatives in the field of energy efficiency and the region’s sustainable development.
