Empowering cities to decarbonise buildings and districts

Empowering local players, making wise use of our resources and living within our planet’s boundaries requires sound, democratic decision-making processes.  

We, at Energy Cities, are driven by a desire to strengthen the role and skills of local governments to ensure local communities’ well-being and to accelerate the transition to climate neutrality. The Energy Cities Hubs are the community spaces dedicated to our members that:   

• Activate local leaders to deliver living spaces that are accessible to everyone  
• Empower local communities to decide on their own future  

• Inspire a learning community of cities engaged in future-proofing their economies  

Our 5 Hubs, launching in April, will be a new way of structuring the activities of our network. Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out more! Today, we’re exploring the Fossil free districts and buildings Hub. 

What is the “Fossil free districts and buildings” Hub about?  

The district and building scales are essential to decarbonising the built environment and transitioning to future-proof territories. Beyond energy efficiency, decarbonised heating and cooling systems will play a key role in achieving this. Cities are in the driving seat to decarbonise heating and cooling, especially with local heat planning to become mandatory in the near future, and we need to make sure that they are endowed with the right instruments and capacities to lead the way. 

Are you willing to reduce your municipality’s energy needs? Are you wondering how to create your best local energy mix without relying on just a single energy source or technology? Are you looking for ways to develop locally sourced efficient district heating and cooling networks while involving citizens and stakeholders? Then this Hub is for you! 

Together, we will coordinate efforts to improve financial, technical, and human capacities for cities. We will explore local and national legislation as well as public actions to trigger the energy system’s decarbonisation, while putting in debate the questions of governance, energy public services and ownerships. Through this, we will support cities in choosing the best local energy mix and decarbonising their built environment. 

Concretely, what does it mean? 

Through a series of activities that we will provide within this Hub, we will: 

• Make sure that our members are up to date and informed about the latest EU policy developments through policy briefs for local policy makers with key updates on major EU policy files linked with heating and cooling decarbonisation, housing renovation, etc. 
• Organise discussions between local political leaders and key EU policy makers on concrete proposals in support of cities’ climate transition 
• Help our members build their capacities in order to facilitate their transition journey. We will achieve this with training, coaching, tools and peer-to-peer exchanges 
• Facilitate our members’ access to EU funding with info sessions, matchmaking events and project ideas labs. We will also run competitive calls for funding on specific topics. 

Ready to join the Fossil-free districts and buildings Hub? 

As our member, you can join and benefit, free-of-charge, from all the activities of our five Hubs, aligned with our intervention systems and impact targets. By joining our Hubs, you become part of our learning community of local practitioners with different backgrounds and fields of expertise: political representatives, technicians and city officers, all sharing the same vision: reaching climate neutrality by 2050. Interested in the Fossil free districts and buildings Hub? Get in touch to pre-register here.  

We will launch our Hubs during our Annual Forum in April and we will keep you posted in the coming weeks.