With support from the European Climate Foundation we are teaming up with Energy Cities to foster collaborations between members of REScoop.eu and members of Energy Cities.

With the publication of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back in 2015, the United Nations explicitly recognised the role of local authorities in the transition towards a more sustainable future. To empower cities and communities in taking local climate and energy action, the European Commission further launched the Covenant of Mayors, a growing network of over 7.000 local and regional authorities from across 57 countries worldwide.

Moreover, following the adoption of the “Clean Energy Package for All Europeans” in 2019, there is a now a concrete window of opportunity for citizens and their local authorities to jointly set-up Energy Communities.

With a series of capacity building activities, REScoop.eu and Energy Cities aim to foster enhanced collaboration between citizen energy cooperatives and their respective cities in France, Italy and Spain. Our member E+P got linked to Pamplona, Enostra got connected to Modena and Brasseurs d'Energie ("Energy Brewers") engaged with Strasbourg. Through an EU-level peer-to-peer "e-Cooperation Lab" we managed to enhance the capacities of both the energy cooperatives and the cities and we supported the further development of sustainable energy action plans with a central role for community energy and democratisation processes.

These inspiring stories have been captured by Energie Cities in a podcast series. Stay tuned because we will organise a new series of cooperation labs in 2021 for which we will reach out to our members.