CLIBUS

Cities and regions across the Europe have created climate strategies to achieve carbon-neutrality or remarkably reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. After the easiest and most cost-efficient GHG emission reduction actions, it is essential to improve the involvement of business sector and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the implementation of local and regional climate strategies. However, public authorities are lacking capacity for the involvement of private sector and the issue is not yet well covered in the current policy instruments.

The project CLIBUS aims to improve current policy instruments to better support the preconditions of SMEs and business communities to implement energy efficiency and GHG reduction activities. Deepening collaboration with business communities, such as industrial districts, business parks and networks would provide new opportunities to cities and regions in climate actions. CLIBUS aims to improve public authorities’ capability to facilitate and support business sector’s, especially SMEs’, contribution in implementation of climate strategies.

Capacity for policy improvement is build up on organisational, regional and interregional level in the project, through repeating rounds of regional and interregional exchange and by processing outcomes from given themes related to networks, public-private collaboration models, support, service and competence needs of SMEs in implementing energy-efficiency actions and utilisation possibilities of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting data in targeting energy-efficiency actions.

The CLIBUS partnership connects regions from four geographical areas of the programme, all sharing the common goal for an energy-efficient and sustainable future. The CLIBUS partnership is a balanced mix of new regions and previous experience of the programme from Finland, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and Ukraine.