Building on resources developed in previous projects, such as 50000&1 SEAPs that works on the topics of energy management and action plan standards, and the Save@Work project that organised municipal energy-saving competitions, the Compete4SECAP project (C4S) aims at helping local authorities put their existing Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) into action.
The project promotes the adoption of standardised energy management systems in municipalities through the coordination of national competitions and peer-to-peer exchanges that steer the attention and involvement of local to national authorities in eight European countries. The project also helps facilitate the upgrade of SEAPs into Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), as per new planning approaches promoted by the Covenant of Mayors.
The C4S project covers eight countries across Europe, and will recruit at least 32 local authorities. Each town designates a local Energy Management Team to implement Energy Management System (EnMS) in public buildings and other municipal operations (i.e. public facilities, street lighting, municipal vehicle fleets). A national energy management group is also to be created in each country, involving representatives from each of the participating cities, as well as national policymakers, other stakeholders and the in-country project partner.
ICLEI will coordinate peer-to-peer exchanges among stakeholders who will themselves train local authorities in EnMS and related practices, which helps to ensure replicability. Additionally, ICLEI will help local authorities to take their SEAPs and similar strategies a step further, for example upgrading them to SECAPs (based on ICLEI's extensive experience in action-planning and expertise in climate adaptation). In addition to making cities become more resilient, it also helps them to become better aligned to wider initiatives like the updated ambitions found in the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.