C4T Community of Practice: bringing actors together to facilitate sustainability transitions

The session ‘C4T Community of Practice: bringing actors together to facilitate sustainability transitions’ started with an intervention from Ms. Myriam Boveda, Team Leader of the Sustainable Growth team at Unit G1 – DG REGIO (European Commission). Ms. Boveda first presented the concept of sustainability transitions, which is the core concept of C4T. As mentioned in the session, sustainability transitions entail long term transformations to achieve more sustainable ways of production and consumption. Her intervention finalised by remarking that C4T supports the effective expenditure of Policy Objective 2 of Cohesion Policy – “A greener, low carbon transitioning towards a net zero carbon economy”, as the evidence shows that tailored support to managing authorities can resolve the bottlenecks of the investments on this area.

Ms. Adriana Iliescu, from the C4T secretariat, presented the state of play and the way forward of the C4T Community of Practice. She described the work carried out so far by the different actions within the C4T umbrella: the Working Groups, Academic Sounding Board, and C4T Groundwork. Regarding the C4T Working Groups, Adriana Iliescu stated the objectives and deliverables of the three groups on Energy, Environment and Climate. On the C4T Academic Sounding Board, the 11 academic members of the board were presented, together with the type of activities they will develop under C4T and the joint activities with the Working Groups. Finally, on C4T Groundwork, Ms. Iliescu explained the objectives of this technical assistance and presented the 6 beneficiaries of the first call. To finalise the presentation, the member of the C4T secretariat indicated the previous C4T events, such as the C4T Conference held on June 6, 2023, and the next one, the C4T Forum that will take place on 21 November 2023 in Brussels and online.

The next presentation was given by Ms. Letizia Zavatti, from the Energy and Green Economy Area, General Directorate Knowledge, Research, Labour, Enterprises of the Emilia-Romagna region. Ms. Zavatti presented the framework of the Pact for Work and Climate of the Emilia-Romagna region. The pact sets a series of goals linked to the ecological transition, such as being a 100% renewable energy region by 2035 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Ms. Zavatti continued the presentation by describing Policy Objective 2 of Emilia Romagna’s ERDF plan, focusing on the measures to support the development of renewable energy communities (RECs) and the local public authorities in the energy transition. On the support to RECs, Ms. Zavatti presented the call funded by the European structural funds, which received 141 applications. Finally, she described the call for applications to support local authorities on energy transition issues, which received 45 applications and focused on providing information and assistance services, as well as strengthening the administrative capacity.

Ms. Rachel Tully, Head of EU Projects in the Extremadura Energy Agency, presented the second regional case: the energy transition in Extremadura (Spain). Ms. Tully showed some key facts on the state of renewable energy in the region, such as the renewable power installed, the PV deployment and the support of the agency to install PV for self-consumption. Ms. Tully also presented the advisory service for the absorption of subsidies offered by the energy agency. It received 11.000 consultations in 2022 and 7.000 so far in 2023, concerning mostly grants for self-consumption and storage, as well as sustainable mobility. Finally, Ms. Tully described the activities carried out to support energy communities in the region, such as dissemination of activities and training, deploying energy efficiency services, and developing of sustainable mobility projects and EV charging stations, among others.

The presentations were followed by a discussion guided by questions from the audience and panel. The representatives from Extremadura and Emilia-Romagna regions exchanged views on the factors and specific context that led them to achieve successful stories in the energy transition of the respective territories. Moreover, both panellists discussed the implications of energy communities on energy poverty. Finally, the session wrapped up with an overview of the future of the C4T Community of Practice from DG REGIO.