A First Financial Assessment of SEAP Public Energy Interventions Performance Through Municipal Budget

The European volunteer initiative of local administrators Covenant of Mayors (CoM) launched in 2008, set by 2020 the first deadline in achieving the emission reduction target of 20% CO2 compared to 1990 levels. Each CoM signatory developed a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP), designing energy efficiency interventions. This first CoM commitment period (2008–2020) has highlighted a relevant engagement (63% of the total CoM signatories) of “small” Municipalities (i.e. under 10, 000 inhabitants), particularly in Italy and Spain. The aim of the research, is to propose a monitoring methodology for the assessment of the impacts of SECAP in local Municipality comparing CO2 emission achievements with municipal budget analysis. Focusing on three Italian small Municipalities (two CoM signatories and one no-CoM), the research explores investments related to the public energy efficiency interventions on the Municipal budget. The selected case studies allowed to verify if SECAP represents or not an effective driver to boost energy transition in small municipalities. In this view achieved results have been compared, in order to highlight the main outcomes, and emphasizes how is the impact of the CoM initiative and how are the differences in terms of expenditure allocated and interventions planned by three sample Municipalities. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.