Localised decarbonisation pathways for citizens, local administrations and businesses to inform for mitigation and adaptation action

Project Information

LOCALISED

Grant agreement ID: 101036458

DOI

10.3030/101036458

Project closed

EC signature date 16 September 2021

Start date 1 October 2021

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 5 083 700,00

EU contribution

€ 5 083 700,00

Coordinated by

POTSDAM-INSTITUT FUR KLIMAFOLGENFORSCHUNG EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - LOCALISED (Localised decarbonisation pathways for citizens, local administrations and businesses to inform for mitigation and adaptation action)

Reporting period: 2024-10-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The LOCALISED project addressed the need for regional data and knowledge to effectively support municipalities, their citizens, and businesses in accelerating net-zero efforts and climate adaptation planning. We developed tools to address this need: The Climate Action Strategiser (CAST) for public authorities and urban planners and the Net-Zero Business Consultant (NZBC) for local businesses. The NZBC provides local businesses with insights into effective mitigation and adaptation options. Together with the Sustainable Business Models Canvas (SBMC) it helps businesses better understand their operations and areas for improvement. In addition to the decarbonization pathways introduced by CAST at the NUTS3 and LAU levels it includes functionality for semi-automatic filling of mandatory Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs). Furthermore, CAST provides adaptation and mitigation measures that consider social impact and help understand the local contribution to reaching the SDGs. CAST also allows users to change the data and improve it with local information. All generated and collected data is available on the open-access Data Sharing Platform (DSP). Additionally, the consortium developed the Citizen Engager (CE), which is a guide to improving engagement processes with citizens, with a special focus on vulnerable groups.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the four years of LOCALISED, the consortium achieved the following:
(1) A methodology for downscaling national data to NUTS3/LAU: The methodology utilises public data sources, including Corine Land Cover, Hotmaps, and Eurostat, to derive spatial proxies and applies machine learning techniques for data disaggregation. Operationally, a Python-based workflow around a Postgres-database was implemented and an API developed in order to facilitate data access; with this LOCALISED Data Sharing Platform (DSP) is public.
(2) The ETHOS.MIDAS model: This model is based on the Integrated Database of Adaptation and Mitigation Measures in Europe established during the first project phase, which is publicly available. A validation framework was applied to address the challenge of determining the feasibility of thousands of individual decarbonisation plans.
(3) The list of Sustainable Oriented Indicators (SOIs): The list of SOIs is the basis for providing the information required to semi-automatically report the SECAP instruments and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) compliance for any NUTS3 or Local Administrative Units (LAU) location in Europe.
(4) The Citizen Engager (CE). The guide was developed based on in-depth evaluation of a participatory process in Vienna, previous projects and engagement activities of the involved partners, as well as further desktop research. Extensive collaboration took place with the city partners in the consortium, who organised and conducted case studies to test the CE through engagement actions in different countries for evaluation. Continuous consultation took place on the integration of the Citizen Engager into the CAST which was successfully implemented.
(5) A consistent methodology for identifying vulnerable groups. It helps to identify those people exposed to energy poverty due to changes in their lifestyles and integrating regional exposure and social vulnerability components.
(6) A deep-in-detail analysis of business models on adaptation to climate change, mainly for key sectors (transport, agriculture, and construction). As a result, the Sustainable Business Model Canvas has been developed, that includes decarbonization and adaptation measures, as well as the link to SDG compliance at the business level.
(7) Structured stakeholder engagement. Different groups were involved in the co-design of the tool.
(8) The Climate Adaptation Strategiser (CAST) was released and presented to potential users in two European Conferences and several regional events in Austria, Poland and Austria.
(9) The Net-Zero Business Consultant (NZBC) has been released, and presented to businesses.
(10) Communication to different target groups was realised by videos on the topic of decarbonisation planning aimed at local authorities. In addition, first scientific publications were published, and more were submitted for review. In terms of transfer and sustainability of results, LOCALISED participated in the Horizon Booster Service for the CAST. A number of European as well as regional and local upscaling events were organised by the project partners in Austria, Spain and Poland, in order to reach out to local/regional public authorities and businesses, present the developed tools and encourage scalability and replication in future, through face-to-face and online demonstration activities.
(11) LOCALISED showed for the first time that detailed regional planning is feasible and the regional differences are substantial enough to justify region-specific policy action. The differences in feasibility in implementing decarbonisation in the individual regions are stark. The biggest challenge of the project was data quality. For robust policy decisions additional resources and an improved regional data infrastructure will be necessary, for example by expanding the mission of Eurostat.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The LOCALISED project made a number of promising advances:
(I) The ETHOS.MIDAS model combines measures across sectors. Data for both adaptation and mitigation, as well as integration of social aspects, has been gathered, and an approach has been implemented. The validation framework determines the feasibility of decarbonization plans, including the optimisation of both social and economic aspects.
(II) With a particular focus on Energy Poverty and vulnerable people, an investigation has been conducted on how changes in lifestyles might produce energy poverty: the so-called heat-or-eat dilemma. To better understand the results presented in the report “Report on key approaches of low carbon lifestyle changes”, we examined the interactions between a specific domain (food) and the energy domain. Through a detailed analysis of how food and energy systems interact on regional, lifestyle, socioeconomic and demographic scales, an index to measure the regional risk of producing energy poverty for households through changes in either energy or food systems was created.
(III) The Renovation Wave initiative is supported by visualisation tools such as the Building Cards. This represents a comprehensive and visually engaging tool that showcases national and regional renovation programmes. They capture and harmonise key characteristics of the programmes and facilitate comparison across regions. A key graphical element is the assessment of whether the adoption of the programme leads to any structural change in the building sector, providing valuable insights into the long-term impact of the programmes. Furthermore, specific interventions within each programme are linked to the LOCALISED mitigation/adaptation database and relevant SDGs and SECAPs.
(IV) In order to connect SECAP and SDGs, a list of Sustainable Oriented Indicators (SOIs) was developed to fill the gap in locally contextualising the SDGs. The list serves as the basis for providing the information required to report on SECAP instruments and the SDGs semi-automatically, maintaining strong common metrics for measuring performance in relation to the 2030 Agenda to compare the results of the efforts performed by municipalities.

LOCALISED tools

LOCALISED zenodo