Background
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 engagement and participation in public decision-making. This paper addresses the question whether and how TCN or NCN membership enables municipalities to implement citizen participation in public decision-making. Six propositions are presented addressing: presumed influence of TCN membership on citizen participation, organization of citizen participation, initiator capacity, goal setting, involvement of stakeholders, participatory methods used, and planning processes. A multi-case study research design is used to verify these propositions, comprising of four medium-sized cities in the Netherlands and three in Belgium.

Results
Results of the analysis of four cities in The Netherlands show that municipalities having membership to climate city networks only to a low extent empower citizen participation via local climate agendas. Citizen participation emerges rather bottom-up via local initiatives or capacity building via EU framework programs—outside TCNs or NCNs—that better suit financial needs and provide more immediate benefits to municipalities. None of the six propositions were confirmed. A more positive image resulted from the Belgian cases that moderately confirmed four out of six propositions (i.e., organizing citizen participation, goal setting, selection of methods, and planning), and featured indirect empowerment via externally funded implementation projects following firm integration of participation in local climate policy through TCN influence.

Conclusions
In terms of citizen participation selected municipalities in the Netherlands having TCN and/or NCN membership only to a small extent differ from those not having membership. This is partly due to poor implementation of TCNs and NCNs—with Covenant of Mayors and ‘Klimaatverbond’ lacking support structure and capacity—having lost importance during the past years. However, there is reason to believe that context makes a difference as revealed by the cases from Belgium, which revealed more positive results.@en

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 energy efficiency, renewable energy production, district heating in households and non-residential buildings. This report is the first deliverable of Work package 2 (Research and Academic Validation) which seeks to gain a better understanding of how collective citizen actions in sustainable energy develop, grow, mature - in other words, how they come of age. This will be done by analysing, monitoring and evaluating experiences of collective citizen action and community engagement in the domains of sustainable energy (i.e. renewable energy, energy efficiency, and energy conservation). This report first presents the results of a literature review (i.e. Deliverable 2.1) – using both academic and grey literature - on energy communities and collective citizen actions contributing to sustainable energy transitions. However, the report goes beyond a literature study. Instead, it was developed as a collaborative effort between the research team at Delft University of Technology and community energy experts and practitioners using multiple interactive and feedback meetings. The central aim of this report is to generate insights into the actions and activities energy communities and citizen collectives undertake to develop and mature their organisations with the objective to scale, achieve transformative change, and make both a social and environmental impact. The report maps state of the art insights into collective citizen actions at the neighbourhood level, targeting energy efficiency and renewable energy technology measures alike. Moreover, it addresses relevant theory and good practice on actions and activities that energy communities can pursue, partly based on theory and partly based on case studies. In addition, the report also takes into account issues like energy poverty, energy democracy, energy justice, social inclusiveness, citizen engagement, multi-stakeholder management in neighbourhoods, the use of digital tools, and data protection (to cope with increasing cybersecurity issues). In addition, the report presents the development and design of a monitoring tool (Deliverable 2.2). The Development Progress Tool uses knowledge from the literature study. This is firstly used to elaborate the energy community maturity scale and framework as developed under the Horizon 2020 COMPILE project (Seebauer et al., 2022). The elaborated maturity index forms the conceptual basis and framework to develop a monitoring tool. The latter will be implemented, tested and validated among the five demonstration pilots of SCCALE 203050 in 2022-2023. @en

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 public decision-making about local-level, sustainable heating transitions. We specifically address the question of how co-creation has been interpreted and implemented by administrations in two major Belgian cities, Bruges and Mechelen, between 2019 and 2023. Data collection included expert interviews, participatory observation, workshops, focus groups, and reviews of action plans and policy documents. We found that a normative understanding of co-creation evolved amongst the project coordinators, who inherently valued the inclusion of citizens in sustainable heat transitions, although actual co-creation only took place at the end of the project (2022–2023). However, we observed structural impediments and contexts that impinge on co-creation: a perceived conflict between community engagement and existing policy agendas, departmental interests; the instrumental framing of projects and the role of co-creation; and the impact of wider political pressures and events (in this case the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions). Conclusions are drawn regarding the longer-term benefits of co-creation for coordinating stakeholders. We also stress the need for research to more fully attend to the structural relations that enable and constrain these actors to practice and innovate with co-creation.@en

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 pitfalls, recent papers have argued to combine synchronous deliberations of small groups of citizens with online participation procedures for the larger public. In this article, we report the results of a three-step combination model, where first a mini-public in the region of Súdwest-Fryslân (NL) was given a “carte blanche” to draft the content and the parameters of several related policy alternatives. Second, their proposals were fed into a digital participation tool to consult the wider public. Third, a citizens forum translated the outcomes of the maxi-public into policy recommendations, which were unanimously approved by the municipal council. In this paper, we report our findings of combining mini- and maxi-publics and how the actors involved evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the combination of these two participatory approaches.@en

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 affected by them. Taking three dimensions of stakeholders, technology, and policy, a structured approach which centres stakeholders is presented to help local government to collaboratively find appropriate technology and policy solutions, both at the strategic scale across the municipality and in localised pilot projects, and explores how to initialise and support heat decarbonisation in more cities. @en

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 question the extent to which participants’ priorities are a good proxy to represent “the public”. Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) potentially circumvents this by allowing a large and diverse group of citizens to advise their government in an accessible manner. In an online environment, citizens step into the shoes of a policy maker and see which policy options the government considers, while being informed about the impacts. Next, they are asked to provide advice. Because PVE was originally designed as an economic evaluation method, it is unclear whether it can be deployed for effective participation. This study investigates how PVE could be deployed for effective participation of citizens in the energy transition through a real-world experiment in the Netherlands. We aimed to conduct the PVE in line with goals of stakeholders which is the most important requirement for effective participation. We fully achieved three goals that were defined by stakeholders: PVE enables participation of people that normally do not participate (particularly young people); low time investment of civil servants; outcomes of a PVE should be useful for decision-making. We partly achieved two goals: PVE raises awareness among citizens about decisions and implications of the energy transition; participation should be meaningful for citizens.@en

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 government on eight different possibilities for relaxing lockdown measures in the Netherlands. By making use of the novel method Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE), participants were asked to recommend which out of the eight options they prefer to be relaxed. Participants received information regarding the societal impacts of each relaxation option, such as the impact of the option on the healthcare system. The results of the PVE informed policymakers about people's preferences regarding (the impacts of) the relaxation options. For instance, we established that participants assign an equal value to a reduction of 100 deaths among citizens younger than 70 years and a reduction of 168 deaths among citizens older than 70 years. We show how these preferences can be used to rank options in terms of desirability. Citizens advised to relax lockdown measures, but not to the point at which the healthcare system becomes heavily overloaded. We found wide support for prioritising the re-opening of contact professions. Conversely, participants disfavoured options to relax restrictions for specific groups of citizens as they found it important that decisions lead to "unity"and not to "division". 80% of the participants state that PVE is a good method to let citizens participate in government decision-making on relaxing lockdown measures. Participants felt that they could express a nuanced opinion, communicate arguments, and appreciated the opportunity to evaluate relaxation options in comparison to each other while being informed about the consequences of each option. This increased their awareness of the dilemmas the government faces.

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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 dominate online discussions, they do also disadvantages other, more average, and less vocal users. Studies have found that people who were exposed to conspiracy theories about climate change reported less intention to reduce their carbon footprint, because the effect of these theories sparked not only feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty towards climate change, but also feelings of disappointment in climate scientists. Conspiracy theories play thus also an increasing role in slowing down the energy transition and have even led to violent and destructive behaviour. This explorative study provides an overview of the occurrence of extreme beliefs regarding climate change and energy transition.@en

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, technical and political challenges. Much is at stake. But what can make a difference? One increasingly discussed potential solution is co-creation. It provides spaces for citizens to share what heating means to them and for stakeholders to build these insights into their programmes for change. However, while local authorities, grassroots, and community organisations are already implementing co-creation with homeowners and groups of citizens, there is a dearth of academic research focusing on the value of co-creating sustainable heating transitions. This indicates a lack of evidence on how these new forms of collaboration perform under which conditions and how they are embedded in the policy cycle. Drawing on European sustainable heating case studies where co-creation has been applied, we outline future areas where critical, engaged research could help us to understand how to unlock sustainable heating transitions.

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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’.@en

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 social components, and addresses the supply, distribution, and demand sides of local energy systems. However, residents and home/building owners are generally considered hard to reach and persuade to make investments, and to let go of currently unsustainable heating systems and adopt those that are more sustainable. This matter is challenging for a myriad of reasons and cost is but one of them. Despite the urgency to lower carbon emissions there is currently a limited market demand for sustainable heating solutions, particularly among building/homeowners in (existing) dense urban areas. Given the urgency of climate change and pressing socioeconomic issues there is a need to develop, implement and test incentives that target home/building owners to make investments. One promising solution is co-creation with citizens and local stakeholders. This report clarifies the different meanings for key terms used in co-creation by taking stock of the growing vocabulary used in different approaches to public participation: by defining and comparing different terms and how they have been used. The report describes the challenges, as well as the benefits, of co-creation as well as the importance of managing expectations, power relationships, and sharing responsibility. The report outlines some of the different methods that can be used in co-creation including workshops, storytelling, online tools and participatory value evaluation which provide opportunities for exploring the abilities and capabilities of those involved and help decide who is responsible for making decisions. The report also describes how co-creation can be assessed, monitored, and evaluated. Organising and managing co-creation are commitments that require thorough preparation, time, and inclusion. In-depth assessments support stakeholders and citizens in making informed decisions about the time, energy, and resource investments necessary for co-creation. Further exploring the process of co-creation, the report details how embedding co-creation in ongoing planning and formal decision-making processes is ideal for enhancing impact and can help reduce disruption and cost where, for example, new infrastructure might be installed as part of broader neighbourhood developments rather than as a standalone project. An increased awareness of complex and sensitive issues needs to be balanced against the flexibility and practicality of the process and keeping co-creation running closely alongside decision-making helps reduce the potential for conflict.@en