New dialogues between cities & local stakeholders

Energy Cities has carried out a new exploratory study for cities and diverse project leaders desiring to start a sustainable energy transition in collaboration with all stakeholders in their territory.

Local authorities have a key role to play in climate and energy policies and in the energy transition towards a low carbon, energy efficient and sustainable society. However, they cannot act alone.

They often control only a small percentage of the emissions of local greenhouse gases directly, and this percentage rarely exceeds a quarter.

It is therefore necessary to rely on the involvement of local stakeholders, which in turn will provide an opportunity for these stakeholders to be ambitious through innovative actions.

How to stimulate stakeholders’ involvement ?

In the past several years, a number of citizens’, economic actors’ or other local actors’ initiatives have contributed to the energy transition of territories. These initiatives are based on empowerment. For instance, stakeholders can get access and the power to act on innovative tools and approaches, such as social economy, stakeholders’ participation, crowdfunding, renewable energy citizen cooperatives and fablabs.

Two primary questions to explore

• As coordinators and pilots of local strategies for energy transition, how can local authorities foster, identify, support and replicate local energy transition initiatives ?
• What dialogue should local authorities and leaders of local initiatives engage in ? How can they drive new modes of governance, where stakeholders share responsibility to co-develop public policies, manage their city, and encourage the energy transition at the local level ?

These topics will be debated during our Annual Conference in Bornova, from 1 to 3 June 2016. More info