Local green deals : a blueprint for action : the European Commission's intelligent cities challenge

A Local Green Deal is a local tailor-made action plan to accelerate and scale-up a city's sustainability transition. It builds on and joins up existing strategies - e.g. sustainable energy and climate action plans, circular economy plans, resilience or economic development plans - legislation, market and financial incentives into a coherent approach to advance EU policy frameworks like the EU Green Deal and the Clean Industrial Deal locally. Local Green Deals (LGDs) can only work if they empower local businesses and civil society to lead the way in accelerating the transition to a climate neutral and economically competitive future. LGDs address the fact that standard governance and policy implementation will not be sufficient to achieve the transformation required to truly implement sustainable development. Implementing the European Green Deal and Clean Industrial Deal at the local level requires integrated, multidisciplinary governance, regulations, approaches and instruments to support the policy areas outlined in these policy frameworks to deliver joint action. Moreover, LGDs provide a framework for collaboration with the private sector that can help unlock innovation, as well as generate markets for climate neutrality to accelerate progress against territorial decarbonization. LGDs aim to put sustainable development at the core of all local government decision-making rather than a single strategy from one department. LGDs should draw on approaches of the past 10 to 15 years but address key areas that have been missing from traditional approaches or seen as too complex to implement