17/07/2026
One process instead of two: a new simplified pathway now connects the European Energy Award and the EU Covenant of Mayors.
Municipalities participating in the European Energy Award can now join the Covenant of Mayors — or fulfil their existing Covenant commitments — directly through the established eea process.
The new CoM–eea Simplified Process integrates the Covenant’s requirements into the regular eea planning, monitoring and auditing cycle. This allows municipalities to work within one coordinated framework instead of maintaining parallel processes and duplicating reporting efforts.
Through the process, municipalities address the three central pillars of the Covenant of Mayors: climate mitigation, adaptation and energy poverty. Existing eea tools and activity programmes can be used to report territorial emissions, assess climate risks and vulnerabilities, and plan concrete actions for reducing emissions, strengthening resilience and supporting a just energy transition.
For LEEAN-CET, this is an important development. The project supports municipalities in Central and Southeast Europe in introducing structured energy and climate management through the eea methodology. The simplified process creates a clearer route for these efforts to connect with the wider European movement of local authorities committed to climate neutrality by 2050.
The first municipalities may already test the new process during the 2026 eea certification cycle, with the ambition of presenting initial examples at the 2026 EU Covenant of Mayors Ceremony.
IMRO-DDKK Nonprofit Kft | Eko sustav | Energy Institute Hrvoje Požar - EIHP | Energetska agencija KSSENA | Energieagentur Regio Freiburg GmbH | | | ЕнЕфект / EnEffect, Center for Energy Efficiency | Association Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine | |
