European mayors signatories of the covenant on ‘smart cities’ and energy efficiency

Italy ranks first in Europe with its over 2700 adhesions to the Covenant of Mayors, that is a European commitment by local and regional authorities to higher energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources in their territories.

This is the outcome of the ’High Level Roundtable’ discussion on "The strategic role of Smart Cities for tackling energy challenges", organised on 25th February in Brussels by the Directorate-General for Energy of the European Commission. Among the roundtable attendees: Mr. Maros Sefcovic, Vice-President of the European Commission’s Energy Union, the mayors of over 20 European cities and the EU DGs for Energy and Research and Innovation, parliament members, representatives from BEI, the European Alliance to Save Energy and from ENEA, as regards all projects supporting smart cities and energy efficiency. The signatories included representatives from Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Zaragoza, Bristol, Sofia, Lubiana and, as for Italy, the mayors of Florence, Mr. Dario Nardella, the mayor of Turin, Mr. Pietro Fassino, and ENEA’s Commissioner, Mr. Federico Testa.

The roundtable was conceived as a space for dialogue and debate with the main stakeholders involved in the pathway to ‘smart’ cities and communities. Three priority themes were on the agenda: smart cities, energy efficiency in buildings and the Covenant of Mayors.

‘“As the National Covenant Coordinator and leading actor of several smart-city programmes and actions, ENEA is the reference liaison between local authorities, enterprises and the research community”, stressed Federico Testa during his speech. ’The pathway to smart cities’, he added, ‘demands investments, decision-making policies and strategies targeted at developing innovation technologies based on the synergy between Public Administration, industrial production chains and the research system”.

The meeting emphasized the role increasingly crucial that the Covenant of Mayors plays for sustainable energy and also the leading position of Italy in the list of adhesions: out of over 5,714 signatory Local Authorities, more than 50% are Italian. Additionally, more than 2,400 Italian municipalities have already prepared their Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP), a document containing all operative plans and actions to be implemented and adopted to fulfil their commitments.

As for energy efficiency of buildings, ENEA provides the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MiSE) with its technical and scientific support and also contributes to: the Italian National Strategy of the energy upgrading of buildings (STREPIN), the Italian National Plan to speed up the construction of near-zero-energy buildings (PANZEB) and the Italian National Plan for the energy upgrading of Central Public Administration buildings (PREPAC), for which a special steering committee on energy efficiency, coordinated by MiSE, has been set up with the involvement of the Italian Ministry for the Environment.