Bob D’Haeseleer

City Advisor NetZeroCities, ICLEI

Apocaloptimist and energy enthusiast with an academic background in Geography and Political Sciences. Passioned about looking at the world in energy landscapes and thinking about how these affect socio-political systems. Former Deputy Mayor of Eeklo, responsible for building a unique democratic model for renewables that allowed the locally owned and supported construction of 22 windturbines, a new heat and solar strategy and an energy poverty scheme which won the EU Social Innovation award in 2023. “We rebranded energy as a local product”. Currently employed by ICLEI as City Advisor for EU Cities Mission and passionately exploring new opportunities to envision the shared use of (big) sport stadiums and -infrastructure as catalysers for neighbourhood transitions.