The European Display® Campaign is a voluntary scheme designed by energy experts from European towns and cities. When started in 2003 it was initially aimed at encouraging local authorities to publicly display the energy and environmental performances of their public buildings using the same energy label that is used for household appliances. Since 2008 private companies are also encouraged to use Display for their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. See Participate for more information.

As most Member States now have a National certificate for their existing public buildings, Display is increasingly being used as a complementary communication tool. With its strong emphasis on local communication campaigns and large variety of communication tools Display goes beyond the basic requirements of the EPBD. Especially the evolution poster allows displaying in a clear manner the efforts made and the improvements of energy efficiency of public buildings.

A voluntary common European Union certification scheme?

Far from it: although the EPBD recast legislative process of May 2010 requires the European Commission to developprovides a common European certification for the energy performance of non-residential buildings, however the Member States to date have not reached an agreement on a system. The introduction of this voluntary scheme, which will be the same in all Member States and exist alongside the national certification scheme, has been postponed until 2015. Energy Cities feels that Display can provide the EU, if Member States agree, with the opportunity to introduce an already tried and tested voluntary common European Union certification for the energy performance of non-residential buildings. It is all the more gratifying, that hundreds of Display participants have been implementing this pan-European label since 2003. It is felt that the common approach will go a long way to reducing the current confusion.

Fully supported by the European Commission

In October 2001 the European association Energie-Cités suggested that: “Without waiting for the Directive on the energy performance of buildings to be passed, municipalities start to Display the energy performance of their buildings frequented by the general public”. Only one month later Energie-Cités submitted the first Display project proposal.

The 30-month pilot phase started in January 2003 while the public Display Campaign was launched in April 2004. From 2005 untill April 2011 the Campaign was co-financed by the European Commission under the Intelligent Energy - Europe Programme. At first under the project title "Towards Class A" and then from 2008 as *C*ommunicate *Y*our *B*uildings *E*nergy *R*ating (CYBER) Display.
Since 2011, the campaign is essentially financed by participation fees and specific contracts with Member States and participating local authorities.