The Joint Research Centre (Institute for Energy and Institute for Environment and Sustainability) has issued a report entitled „Existing Methodologies and Tools for the Development and Implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP)“, which provides valuable guidance for municipalities, NGOs and other stakeholders in developing urban sustainable energy action plans.

The Joint Research Centre is providing technical and scientific support to the Covenant of Mayors project, which is a European initiative by which towns and cities voluntarily commit to reduce their CO2 emissions beyond the EU target of 20%, through the implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs).

Municipalities have to submit a Baseline Emissions Inventory (BEI) and a SEAP within one year after the formal adhesion to the Covenant of Mayors. In order to help Local Authorities to fulfil these commitments, a set of technical documents are being prepared. As a first step, a research on existing methodologies and tools for SEAP elaboration and CO2 emissions inventories at local level has been carried out.

This report summarises the results of this research and is divided in two parts: existing methodologies and tools for SEAP elaboration (part I) and CO2 emissions inventories at local level (part II). All these tools and methodologies have been collected from entities/cities with a proven experience in these fields.

In addition, in both parts of the document, a signposting table that allows to compare the various existing methodologies and helps the Covenant signatories to choose the methodology most adapted to their requirements has been elaborated. One of this report’s most relevant conclusions is the identification of the critical steps that have to be followed in order to secure a successful SEAP elaboration and implementation. These outcomes are the base of the next document, a guidebook called “How to develop a Sustainable Energy Action Plan” that intends to offer practical guidance to local authorities through the entire SEAP process.

When this guidebook becomes available, we will post information about here and inform our regular readers via email or Twitter.

The aim of this report is not to identify or impose one tool or methodology that should be followed by all cities, but to provide guidance/recommendations to help local authorities to select the tools that best suit them, according to their own needs and characteristics. It is possible that some cities may actually decide to use several tools, taking advantage of the strengths of each of them.

Following these guidelines will help local authorities to reach the commitments they have taken by signing the Covenant.

Read the full report and recommendations here in PDF format.

Citation: Existing Methodologies and Tools for the Development and Implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP), Publications Office of the European Union, ISBN: 978-92-79-14852-1, ISSN: 1018-5593, DOI: 10.2788/81771


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