The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Reporting Guidelines

Abstract

The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy brings together local and regional authorities voluntarily committing to implementing the European Union’s climate and energy objectives on their territory. Signatory local authorities share a vision for making cities decarbonised and resilient, where citizens have access to secure, sustainable and affordable energy. Signatories pledge to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and to increase their resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Covenant of Mayors helps local authorities to translate their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction ambitions into reality, while taking into account the immense diversity on the ground. it provides signatories with a harmonised data compilation and reporting framework which is unique in Europe which assists them to follow a systemic climate and energy planning and monitoring at the local level. The Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) template constitutes the standard reporting framework for Covenant Signatories. The SECAP template forms the skeleton of the individual action plans. The SECAP and its monitoring part allow signatories to collect and analyse data in a structured and systematic manner, serve as a basis for good climate and energy management and for tracking progress in implementation.

This guide has been developed to assist signatories in understanding the Covenant reporting framework. It seeks to provide signatories with step-by-step guidelines throughout the reporting process. Step I is dedicated to guide signatories through the process of filling in the templates, namely Section I for the SECAP template and Section II for the monitoring template. Step II addresses the upload of documents such as the SECAP, while Step III is focused on the integrated checking system developed for the climate mitigation part of the template and official submission. The guide is enriched with some practical recommendations and concrete examples.

Link to the SECAP Template and other technical material: http://www.covenantofmayors.eu/Covenant-technical-materials.html (selectable in URL below).