Energy and the Environment

The Climate Team

The driving force behind the implementation of the EEA program within the municipality is what is known as the climate team. In addition to a qualified climate advisor responsible for coordination, this team also includes—depending on the municipality’s preferences—local political and administrative representatives, private-sector stakeholders, citizens, and specialized experts.

The Climate Team’s mission (see fig.) consists, initially, of a systematic analysis of the current situation and an assessment of the municipality’s progress in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

With the Climate Pact 2.0, greater emphasis is being placed on citizen engagement, which will also lead to a reorganization of Garnich’s climate team.

  • The core climate team continues to consist of the Climate Pact advisor, the College of the Mayor and Aldermen, and members of the administration, in order to be able to prepare and quickly make concrete policy decisions regarding the Climate Pact.
  • The citizen climate team expands the core team by bringing in engaged citizens who help shape the Climate Pact from within civil society (a “bottom-up” approach) and who also wish to share ideas and solutions with the general public (“multipliers”). The idea is that motivated citizens can come forward and participate, or that their involvement can be institutionalized through collaboration with a municipal commission.
  • A technical climate team (comprising a climate advisor, representatives from the municipality’s technical department and workshops, specialized climate advisors, and external experts) discusses the issues and develops potential solutions in a small group setting before presenting them to the core team and/or the citizen team for further consideration and, ideally, implementation.
  • The regional climate team, composed of regional Climate Pact advisors and administrative staff from neighboring municipalities, complements the institutional framework of the Climate Pact within the municipality.
Work Program

The qualitative and quantitative individual objectives set out in the policy document (which must be reviewed periodically and, if necessary, adjusted) are strategic in nature. While this document outlines the priorities for action that the municipality has set for itself, the activity program defines specific flagship projects, the implementation of which is either already underway or scheduled to begin at a clearly defined future date.

At the start of each calendar year, the climate team first conducts a comprehensive review—based on the EEA criteria catalog—as well as an analysis of climate-related activities, decisions, and measures that were implemented in the past (during the previous year).

Next, the new work plan for the coming year is developed. The climate team is responsible for preparing the activities and projects included in the new work plan. In addition to the targeted involvement of key stakeholders and opinion leaders, all interested citizens will gradually have the opportunity to participate actively.

Garnich Activity Program – Status in 2025

Energy Accounting for Municipal Buildings

Municipalities have many ways to influence electricity and heat consumption in their buildings in order to use energy as efficiently as possible. Energy-efficient equipment can lead to significant energy and cost savings. Another factor in energy consumption that should not be underestimated is user behavior: this can influence consumption by as much as 20% to 30%. For this reason, the municipality itself decided to introduce a municipal energy accounting system, which has now been implemented.

Energy accounting is a useful tool for municipalities to monitor and evaluate the energy performance of buildings and technical systems. Indeed, by applying this system to public buildings, electricity, heat, and water consumption are recorded, allowing for their visualization and analysis. This makes it possible to formulate recommendations to improve energy efficiency and promote the use of renewable energy in various buildings.

In addition, street lighting and the municipal vehicle fleet are also included in the energy accounting.

Municipality-specific indicators

The public sector is the largest employer in Luxembourg and therefore plays a major role in energy conservation. It also serves as an important role model and can help raise awareness among the general public.

The municipality intends to implement an active climate protection policy in the future, in collaboration with all stakeholders in this rural community. In this way, it aims to contribute to reducing CO₂ emissions. Garnich is prepared to take proactive steps to ensure the sustainable development of the community in order to minimize the negative effects of climate change.

By sharing the results achieved and the benefits of climate protection and adaptation with all stakeholders, the municipality aims to encourage others to follow suit and promote broad participation by everyone. This should be reflected in the short, medium, and long term in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions data, as well as in indicators of renewable electricity production, which concern not only municipal buildings but the entire municipal area, including private households, agriculture, and businesses and service providers.

To this end, municipality-wide assessments will be conducted to highlight the short-, medium-, and long-term progress of the entire municipality in the areas of energy and climate protection.

Audit as a regular assessment

The work and efforts undertaken by Luxembourg’s municipalities as part of the Climate Pact are documented by the Climate Pact advisor in the EEA tool, a kind of online catalog of questions and assessments. This catalog serves, on the one hand, as a guideline for the municipality, identifying the thematic areas in which it can define concrete fields of action accompanied by appropriate measures to make progress in climate protection and adaptation to climate change. On the other hand, it also serves as the basis for the assessment as part of the Climate Pact audit, which must be conducted periodically and has been slightly modified with the new Climate Pact 2.0.

As part of this audit, municipalities are evaluated at least every three years by an external, independent auditing body based on their individual progress toward achieving the goals set out in their Climate Pact. Participating municipalities can receive an overall score ranging from 0% to 100%. A successful audit also entitles the municipality, as a “bonus” for climate-friendly actions, to additional state subsidies, calculated based on the number of residents (per capita), a “subsidy rate” per resident, and a “subsidy rate” per achieved category.

Until now, audit results were—in keeping with the Olympic spirit—divided into “bronze” (overall score between 40% and 49.9%), “silver ” (50% to 74.9%), and “gold” (75% to 100%), with the latter requiring a specific procedure at the European level. Since 2021, an intermediate category between silver and gold (a sort of “silver plus”) has been introduced: following Category I (40% to 49.9%) comes Category II (50% to 64.99%), followed by the new Category III (65% to 74.99%), before reaching, as before, Category IV “European” (75% to 100%), considered “out of category.”

  • In the most recent certification in 2019, the municipality of Garnich achieved an overall score of 77.1%, thereby earning Silver certification for the second time (the first time was in 2015 with a score of 70.0%).

Of course, the municipality is also aiming for a high certification level for the audit scheduled for 2023/2024. However, this goal requires significant effort, as the list of measures—which also serves as the basis for evaluation in the audit—has been significantly revised in detail. This does not mean starting from scratch, but a number of new measures and concepts must be developed.