The SAVE AGE project is the first European initiative, addressing energy efficiency issues in nursing homes as an important potential for decreasing energy consumption and costs.Besides technical improvements and changes in behaviour it is also important to raise awareness and enhance the employees’ knowledge of energy related facts. Analyses in 100 care homes in 10 European countries resulted in recommendations for residents, managers, and employees in nursing homes, showing them how to improve the comfort of the elderly while saving energy and reducing operational costs.

Improving the energy sustainability is one of the most pressing challenges facing Europe's society today. Nearly 14% of the EU population is over the age of 65 and this figure is expected to double by 2050. By then, we will have 80 million older Europeans who will continue to play an active role in our society, despite limitations which the ageing process often brings. As many as 1.5 million of people lives in more than 24,000 residential and care homes in Europe, making them an important society and organizational group. The SAVE AGE project builds upon analysis of the current situation, searching for technical, behavioural, knowledge and financial obstacles towards energy efficiency in residential and care homes for the elderly.

Project uses the established E.D.E. network - members in E.D.E. are represented in 18 European countries and 23 national associations – and other communicational means to convince home managers to implement energy efficiency strategy and action plan with the aim to stimulate investment and no or low-costs measures leading to energy savings. A set of training activities will be developed at national level and some pilot residential homes will be established to test the various action plans. All these actions are supported with communication activities aiming at raising awareness in order to change behaviour of homes staff and residents to become more energy efficient.

Project activities will be implemented by 13 EU partners across 10 EU members’ states, but dissemination activities will go much broader to reach up to 24.000 RCHEPs by using the E.D.E. network in 18 European countries and 23 national associations joined under the E.D.E. initiative and E.D.E.'s connections to other associations and institutions.