Over the course of three years, the project "CASCADE - Cities exchanging on local energy leadership" inspired improvements in the implementation of sustainable energy policies through three "cascading" levels of high quality networking and peer-to-peer learning activities:
- Level 1:
In depth peer-review visits among 19 partner cities: city experts and decision makers, as well as local stakeholders reviewed and validated the implementation of sustainable energy action plans and projects in six participating cities. Together they elaborated recommendations on possible areas of improvement. - Level 2:
Mentoring, work-shadowing and study visits: 20 additional cities, mainly from Central and Eastern European countries, were invited to join a series of transnational networking activities. They were conducted in three different peer-to-peer learning formats and tailored to the specific needs of the participating cities. - Level 3:
Regional and national networking: CASCADE cities demonstrated their leadership in energy practice through "peer advice" to neighbouring cities and national technical seminars.
CASCADE networking and peer-to-peer learning activities focused on three thematic areas:
- Energy in urban transport
- Energy efficient buildings & districts
- Renewable energy resources & distributed energy generation
Next to the facilitation of peer-to-peer learning activities in the third thematic area, the Wuppertal Institute developed the CASCADE benchmark. With the CASCADE benchmark cities can self-evaluate their performance on implementing climate action plans and projects and identify areas of improvement.