Abstract

There is a vast movement to transform the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy by 2050, with ambitious objectives already set at the EU level for 2030 and 2035. Initiatives such as the EU Climate Pact offer examples of EU-wide undertakings that invite people, communities, and organizations to participate in climate action and build a greener Europe. At the heart of such is the notion that top-down sustainability and climate approaches (e.g., UN, EU, or national level) need to be complemented with evidence-based and coherent bottom-up initiatives, which turn local authorities, different stakeholder/civil society groups, and individual citizens into key actors in achieving the green transition. In recent years, significant steps have been taken to generate new data and information in both the public and private sectors linked to sustainability performance and the green economy. However, maximizing the potential benefits from the smart reuse and combination of this data (“information asymmetry”) remains an issue. The need for new and improved sustainability performance metrics, which build on existing global and local best practices and methodologies and achieve better integration of different data sources to develop higher quality and more accurate indicators, is recognized. The chapter aims to show that the development, implementation, and scaling of country- and region-specific framework for integrated, multi-level stakeholder engagement to accelerate the green transition in regions, using an adapted doughnut economics approach, will help local authorities to become green and sustainable. As a result of analysis and practical examples from worldwide on doughnut methodology implementation, framework is proposed that can help local authorities plan, implement, and monitor the green transition in their regions (using an adapted doughnut economics approach as a starting point), as well as help local authorities develop and implement an integrated, interlinked set of measures, which create a direct connection with the EU’s Green Deal objectives and associated policies at the national level to ensure that local authorities, stakeholder groups, and citizens can effectively contribute to achieving the green transition holistically.