Signatories to the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) and their Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) play a major role in the task of designing and implementing policies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on the local level. The success of the CoM to win close over 6000 signatories required– and still requires – flexibility as well as guidance. The municipalities need at the same time flexibility for their SEAPs to adapt to local governance and financing frameworks, and guidance regarding their design and implementation.

The scope of the study Multi-level Governance and Partnership Practices in Development and Implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans allowed Ecologic Institute, ICLEI and the Umweltbundesamt Wien to take a closer look at a limited number of case studies. Detailed instructions on how to develop a SEAP have already been issued earlier.

The study explores three case studies on multilateral governance:

• Hannover, Germany
• Province of Barcelona, Spain
• Emilia Romagna Region, Italy

and three case studies on sustainable funding:

• Bath & North East Somerset Council, UK
• Regione Sardegna, Italy
• Namyslow, Poland.

This gathers a range of actual experiences from CoM signatories, spanning singular municipalities as well as coordinating regions. The abstract recommendations that could be drawn from such a small set of samples are necessarily broad but show overarching challenges for a number of structures and local circumstances.