Local Authorities and Cleantech Companies: A Common Story for Europe’s Decarbonised Industrial Future 

Europe’s clean energy transition depends not only on policy frameworks and financing, but on the stories told about cleantech itself. A strong, positive narrative around clean technologies, their local economic value, their role in energy security, and their capacity to generate skilled jobs in regional economies, is a precondition for public support, political will, and market confidence. Cleantech SMEs developing solutions in heating and cooling, energy storage, green hydrogen, smart grids, and advanced building materials are not peripheral actors: they are the practical engine of the energy transition. Framing them as such, as strategic industrial and environmental assets rather than niche players, changes how communities, investors, and policymakers engage with them.  

Local and regional authorities are not merely supporting actors in the energy transition: they are among its most consequential drivers. They set local energy and climate targets, design and implement SECAPs, manage public buildings and infrastructure, commission large-scale renovations, and more importantly, shape the regulatory and planning environment in which businesses operate. 

This session offers a direct opportunity to bring these themes to life for practitioners. Drawing on the findings of EEW5 project, it will share key outcomes and narrative rules with local and regional actors, grounding them in the reality of the case of the Basque Country. Organised in cooperation with the EU Covenant of Mayors, the session is designed to support signatories and their coordinators in their ongoing work to drive cleantech adoption and scaling at the local level, examining what enables or blocks progress, and identifying practical steps that local actors can take to strengthen their relationship with the companies in their territories.

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