Bridging European and Local Climate Action (BEACON)
The project is completed. Bridging European and Local Climate Action (BEACON) was a project promoting climate action and facilitating an exchange between national governments as well as municipalities and schools in Europe. The aim of the project was to strengthen bi- and multilateral cooperation and create common ambition to realise the Paris Agreement.
Awareness Climate Policy Climate Strategies and Plans Municipalities
Project info
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania
04/18 - 03/21
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10,321,591.57 €
Contact info
Moritz Schäfer
- Guidehouse
- adelphi research gGmbH
- Association of Municipalities Polish Network "Energie Cités" (PNEC)
- Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (CRES)
- Environ Association
- Independent Institute for Environmental Issues UfU e.V.
- National Trust EcoFund (NTEF)
- SEVEn - The Energy Efficiency Center z.ú.
- The Romanian Network of Energy Cities (OER)
Background
To successfully implement the Paris Agreement and the European climate and energy targets for the year 2030 and beyond, climate action needs to be enhanced on all relevant levels of governance. National governments need to create effective policies and framework conditions. A crucial contribution to the achievement of the EU climate protection goals will be made by municipalities and local actors. These stakeholders can be pioneers and drivers of profound decarbonisation and social transformation processes as their actions have considerable potential for increasing energy efficiency and saving greenhouse gases. Schools and other educational institutions in particular can play a key role by reducing their own energy consumption but also educating future generations for a climate-friendly world.
Project
Through joint learning, networking and tailored advisory services, policy-makers, municipal actors and educators gained technical and process-related skills that helped them develop, refine and implement measures for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Good practices of successful emission reduction measures were disseminated based on an EU-wide analysis of successful national climate protection instruments, focusing on the buildings, transport, small industrial installations, and agriculture sectors. Furthermore, good practices on the local level were identified and shared in a network with regular meetings of 34 municipalities from the Czech Republic, Romania, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Germany. Back home, participating municipalities received technical support and on-the-job coaching to transfer good practices and successfully implement them in their local context. Additionally, five city partnerships on climate action were promoted within the network.
To increase awareness about climate change and action on the individual level, 55 educational institutions in the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and Germany will be involved in the project. The project team will analyse school curricula and climate action in existing educational programs, develop incentive models for energy saving and energy saving action plans in schools, as well as conduct workshops, trainings and study tours to Germany for educators from participating schools in partner countries.
Results
As a part of the BEACON project, Guidehouse and adelphi developed a policy paper with the aim of identifying existing policy instruments throughout Europe that have successfully led to greenhouse gas emission reductions in non-ETS sectors (transport, buildings, smaller industry, and agriculture). You can find the reports here.
Last update: December 2025