ICLEI enables the mainstreaming of the prosumer phenomenon into the European Energy Union, supporting citizen participation, inclusiveness and transparency and most of all to contribute to a sustainable energy transition for Europe through decentralized approaches towards 2030 and 2050.

Through this partnership with the non-profit organization R20, ICLEI promotes and implements projects designed to produce local economic and environmental benefits in the form of reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, strong local economies, improved public health and new green jobs. ICLEI identifies medium to large scale climate and energy projects such as waste-to-energy, smart street lighting and other low carbon solutions looking to further develop these projects into bankable joint venture initiatives with private sector financiers in Sub Saharan Africa.

Rapid IUWM aims to build the capacity of urban local bodies to understand interlinkages between water, wastewater and storm water; and adopt an integrated urban water management planning and implementation approach through multi stakeholder involvement. Two local urban bodies in Rajasthan (Kishangargh and Ajmer) developed an IUWM based vision for their cities and developed an action plan to achieve the IUWM vision. Both the cities implemented a pilot project based on prioritized strategy selected through stakeholder consultations. The project also builds the capacity of local authorities to create, enable, institutionalize and promote inclusive governance mechanisms undertaking water sector reforms for closing the urban water loop and conservation of water bodies within the cities.

ICLEI worked with Toronto Public Health to carry out research on strategies being used in other jurisdictions to manage extreme heat in older apartment buildings that don’t have air conditioning. The research included both a literature review and interviews with cities in North America and Europe. Eight key strategies were identified for managing extreme heat in Toronto apartment buildings, including active cooling, weatherization and insulation, increasing air circulation, reducing solar gain through windows, increasing natural ventilation, cooling/green/reflective external surfaces, minimizing internal heat generation and cooling on-site within the building.

Through the Reflecting Cities project, ICLEI aims to provide African cities with spaces for reflection to assist them in engaging with the complex urban planning challenges they have identified. The project facilitates a number of exchanges to support urban planners (including representatives from national and local governments) in learning from the experiences of other cities, supported by experts. The project cities have each identified a case study of a complex planning topic with which they are currently wrestling The topics being explored include waste management, greening and traffic management. Based on the technical skills required for each case study, the project provides opportunities to engage with and learn from experts in relevant fields while benefiting from inter-city learning.

Under the Asia Regional Environmental Technology Cooperation project framework of the Foreign Economic Cooperation Office (FECO), Ministry of Ecology and Environment, China, ICLEI supported FECO in conducting one Indian Environmental Industry Research Report, and two Environmental Industry Research Report Solid Waste and Wastewater Management Systems in the Philippines and Indonesia respectively.

CLEI acted as the coordinator of all activities under this service agreement with FECO, and facilitated planning and implementation of the research projects with the engagement of ICLEI South Asia and ICLEI Southeast Asia. Three research reports were prepared as deliverables of the project and submitted to FECO, as guidance documents for Chinese’s environmental enterprises endeavor to engage with the Indian environmental management market, and solid waste and wastewater management in Indonesia and the Philippines. Through this project, ICLEI supported strengthening the cooperation between local governments and the private sector in the region on environmental industry and technology, in exploring possible solutions to the challenges of sustainable development cities are facing.

For a decade, the annual ICLEI Resilient Cities Congress has been providing an open, global space where local governments, researchers, businesses and civil society could meet as equals, contributing with their knowledge and expertise to the advancement of urban resilience. With up to 500 participants and more than 30 partners each year, Resilient Cities is a milestone event where ICLEI engages local, national and global decision makers, adaptation experts and city staff to assess global resilience indicators and forge new partnerships to advance resilient urban development.

ICLEI coordinates the work on a comprehensive Outreach, Communication and Training Strategy for the ROBUST project. The strategy comprises training material for decision-makers in policy and the public sector. The specific objectives are:
To facilitate an effective communication and exchange with ROBUST’s principle target groups: 1) regional rural and urban policymakers, interest groups, and practitioners; 2) European and national policymakers, interest groups, and the general public; and 3) the research and scientific community.
To strengthen the communication and dissemination components of all WPs through common principles and a professional planning and implementation of all related activities.
To support all outreach, communication and dissemination through an interactive project website with Live Case Studies and a publication library.
To ensure a high quality of all project results and support related communications, as well as produce training modules for widespread dissemination and exploitation of ROBUST’s findings.

The aim of the project is to develop an innovative, collaborative and circular systemic approach for regeneration and adaptive reuse of historic city centers. This will be implemented by implementing a repertoire of successful heritage-led regeneration initiatives. The project tests the replicability of the spatial approach and of successful models addressing the specific needs of historic city centres. ROCK delivers new ways to access and experience Cultural Heritage, ensuring environmentally-sound solutions, city branding, bottom-up participation via living labs, while increasing liveability and safety in the involved areas. Sensors and tools support the concrete application of ROCK principles and the platform will enable new ways to collect and exchange data to facilitate networking and synergies.

ICLEI was responsible on international policy processes. Through desk research, interviews and direct participation, ICLEI identified relevant political dynamics and processes regarding the rural-urban nexus in the context of HABITAT III (preparation and implementation) and the implementation of the SDGs. The aim is to identify ways through which the German federal government, and especially the Ministry for Environment and Building, can influence these processes in order to foster a global sustainable rural-urban nexus.
Part of the problem is that there is a limited understanding of the interconnections and hence development potential between urban and peri-urban areas due to an insufficient data base and lack of suitable indicators. That's why ICLEI collected fitting indicators out of a pool of (inter)national indicator sets and – in a second step – developed relevant indicators where needed. The indicators developed in the RUN project can serve as a starting point to better un-derstand these linkages and identify the most relevant data needed.