Bringing local and regional municipalities towards owning their SECAPs

ended

During the last 10-15 years EU municipalities have been working on local climate mitigation policies and measures and lately also on climate adaptation and energy poverty. However, there are still plenty of challenges that municipalities face, e.g., integration of climate adaptation and energy poverty aspects in the energy plans, aligning existing plans to new and more ambitious targets of carbon neutrality as well as securing stronger political commitment and resources to deliver the plans, etc. Often, municipalities are not directly involved in the preparation process, and, in the end, they do not feel like “owners” of the plan. This highly influences the implementation of the SECAP afterwards, in most cases, municipalities disregard the existence of the SECAP. Once the municipalities appoint and institutionalise the process, they can face and tackle the next challenges, e.g., increasing competencies, engaging, and rising awareness of stakeholders and employees in energy and climate actions and implementing measures, etc. The concept behind the OwnYourSECAP is to deliver a systematic approach to development and implementation of sustainable energy and climate action plans in municipalities using 1) energy management systems (EnMS) concept according to ISO 50001 standard, 2) climate adaptation in municipalities concept according to ISO 14092, and 3) innovative engagement approaches. It will allow municipalities to strengthen governance structures and engage representatives of different departments and stakeholders, secure stronger political commitment, and resources, ensure sectoral integration and set more ambitious targets towards carbon neutrality and resilience. In total OwnYourSECAP will involve, train and assist more than 110 target and replication municipalities and 1500 public officers.