The BECA (Balanced European Conservation Approach – ICT services for resource saving in social housing) project addresses the need to reduce energy consumption in European social housing by a very significant amount to meet overall emission reduction targets. To substantially reduce peak and overall demand for energy and water across EU social housing, BECA will develop a full set of innovative services for resource use awareness and resource management. Balance is achieved by addressing not only energy but water, by including all key energy forms - electricity, gas and heating - and by including strong activities in Eastern Europe as well as in the North, South and West of the EU.Social housing organisations in 7 European countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Serbia) and their partners are cooperating in the project to provide ICT-based energy management and energy awareness services directly to social housing tenants and service operators. Services will be piloted by approx. 5,000 social housing tenants across 7 sites in 7 European countries. Sustained reductions in resource use are to be achieved through usable ICT-based services directly to tenants, as well as by effective monitoring and control of local power generation and, for district heating, the full heat delivery chain. Intensive work will be addressed to optimising services for tenants and maximising impact on resource use behaviour. Service requirements will be investigated with tenants and staff and service prototypes based on initial use cases will be subject to user testing within the first year of the project. Results are used to finalise service design in a second iteration of use case definition and service specification lasting some 8 months, cumulating in implementation of operational services at all the 7 pilot sites. Pilots at sites will operate for at least 14 months; lead sites will be identified to being operation early and provide example solutions to others. The consortium, led by social housing providers and public authorities includes global ICT and service providers and distribution network operators working with local consultants and specialist advisors to carry out all steps in service implementation.