Sustainable Development projects

The Council is participating in a EU-funded project called CASCADE (Cities Exchanging on Local Energy Leadership). CASCADE aims to help develop local energy leadership and address issues such as renewables and decentralised energy.

CASCADE focuses on three main areas:

• Energy efficiency in buildings and districts;
• Energy in urban transport; and
• Renewable energy sources and distributed generation.

The aims of CASCADE are to:

• improve the implementation of sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs) and related local policies and targets for sustainable energy;
• optimise networking and mutual learning between cities to ensure meaningful and sustained communication and sharing of good practice;
• contribute to EU goals for sustainable energy and green economy.

The CASCADE project will help the Council to develop a SEAP to reduce its energy use and carbon emissions, and increase its use of renewable and decentralised energy. It will also make a direct contribution to meeting the Council's obligations as a new signatory to the Covenant of Mayors.  The initiative obliges cities to commit to exceeding a 20% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 through the production and implementation of an energy reduction plan.

Partners: The CASCADE consortium is composed of Eurocities (the lead partner) and 19 large European cities, including the Council.

The project is funded by the European Union's Intelligent Energy Europe Programme 2007-2013. It will run for 3 years from 1 June 2011.