LEAP

It is well-recognised that citizens, politicians and administrators at all levels of government need to be mobilised, together with the private sector, to drive forward energy savings and efficiency, embrace renewable energy and to act on climate change.

The LEAP project facilitates both the production and implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs). Each of the nine local authority partners will be implementing priority SEAP Actions, either from their new or existing SEAPs, and the results of many of these actions will be made available as case studies.

The actions have three themes:
•  Citizen and business campaigns on energy use (reduction and renewables)
•  Increasing new and renewable energy sources
•  Low/zero carbon building (new development and via retrofit)

From municipal staff to business champions, from neighbourhood residents to schoolchildren and from investors to developers – the actions target a wide-ranging audience to improve knowledge and skills; achieve behavioural change; and increase the value and status attributed to a sustainable local energy regime.

The actions which are considered the most successful, and which have the greatest potential for replication in other localities across Europe, are written up into case studies and showcased here. Each case study offers a description of the geographical location, details of the development and implementation of the action, and a discussion of the outcome of the action in delivering sustainable energy benefits and other positive impacts.

The LEAP project will also see three partners pilot an integration of energy planning with spatial planning. Their experience will be presented in a case study report, which will be published here when available.

SEAP actions are implemented throughout the course of the LEAP project, and case studies will be available when actions are completed – this page will therefore be updated regularly.