The role of City Climate Networks in Promoting Citizen Participation in Municipalities: A Critical Multi-Case Analysis

Background<br/>At the COP21, cities were recognised as key actors in combatting climate change. In supporting cities, climate city networks such as transnational climate networks (TCNs) and national climate networks (NCNs) have emerged to enable cities in building capacities and formulating climate policy whilst also encouraging citizen...

Energy Communities Coming of Age: Developing a Tool to Monitor Maturity and Scaling

This report presents Deliverables 2.1 and 2.2 of the Horizon 2020 SCCALE 203050 project (Sustainable Collective Citizen Action for a Local Europe). The aim of this project is to scale the growth of energy communities - or “Renewable Energy Communities'' according to the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) - across Europe in the areas of...

Can co-creation support local heat decarbonisation strategies? Insights from pilot projects in Bruges and Mechelen

Co-creation is often presented as a solution to challenges of achieving energy transitions. However, there is currently little known about how coordinating stakeholders, such as city administrations, interpret co-creation and the extent to which this influences co-creation processes. We draw on a recent project, which embedded co-creation in...

When Digital Mass Participation Meets Citizen Deliberation: Combining Mini- and Maxi-Publics in Climate Policy-Making

The upcoming vogue of climate assemblies and other forms of mini-publics are to give citizens a central role in climate policy-making and to break the political impasse. Yet climate mini-publics face challenges in political environments too, such as co-option, favoring expert opinions, and losing touch with the broader public. To remedy such...

How to accelerate the heat transition: a guide for local government and actors: Module 1 - Co-creation and stakeholder engagement for sustainable heating

A structured approach for governing sustainable heat transitions in building renovation of towns and cities

Pioneer cities have demonstrated a willingness and capability to decarbonise local heat systems, but support is needed to scale up action. Heat decarbonisation is not simply a technical challenge, but also a political and social one; stakeholders must inform decisions about appropriate technological and policy solutions and will, in turn, be...

Including young people, cutting time and producing useful outcomes: Participatory value evaluation as a new practice of public participation in the Dutch energy transition

To achieve a successful energy transition, it is vital to integrate citizens’ needs into government policies through participatory processes. However, offline participatory approaches can be overly intensive which leads to an over-representation of citizens who think that the issue is in their immediate interest. Hence, elected officials often...

Public participation in crisis policymaking. How 30, 000 Dutch citizens advised their government on relaxing COVID-19 lockdown measures

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, governments took unprecedented measures to curb the spread of the virus. Public participation in decisions regarding (the relaxation of) these measures has been notably absent, despite being recommended in the literature. Here, as one of the exceptions, we report the results of 30, 000 citizens advising the...

Co-creation as a social process for unlocking sustainable heating transitions in Europe

Providing heat is a key aspect of social life and a necessity for comfort and health in cold climates. Even though heat accounts for a large proportion of worldwide carbon emissions and is the largest energy end-use, it has remained largely untouched by efforts to decarbonize. Efforts to do so meet significant economic, social-psychological,...

How to deliberate with people who believe in climate and energy conspiracy theories: An explorative study for the TU Delft Energy Transition Lab.

Conspiracy theories on climate change and the energy transition have found a stronghold on the Internet. Many online discussions are dominated by a few users with extreme beliefs, such as attributing secret agendas to powerful elites, governments not telling the truth, or sinister intentions of activists and lobbyists. As such beliefs largely...

State-of-the-art report for co-creation approaches and practices with a special focus on the sustainable heating transition: Shifft work package 2 deliverable 2.1.1

The transition to sustainable heating systems (e.g. district heating systems, heat pumps, solar thermal systems, in combination with thermal insulation) is an essential element of an effective response to climate change. But it requires more than technological innovation alone. It entails a system-wide transition that covers both technical and...

A common approach for sustainable heating strategies for partner cities

SHIFFT is an Interreg 2 Seas project, running from 2019-2022, promoting cross-border cooperation between 4 European countries: The Netherlands, France, Belgium and The United Kingdom. It has been approved under the priority ‘Low Carbon Technologies’.