Authors: Barbara Jarkiewicz

NetZeroCities has selected three European cities for the Leveraging Innovation and Financing for Transformation programme (LIFT), which will support cities in overcoming some of the practical barriers that stand between climate ambition and implementation. Bristol, Leuven and Aarhus will test new approaches to finance, community energy and solar deployment to advance climate action across the continent. 

Backed by a €2 million in total funding, LIFT is a short-term, implementation-focused programme designed for Mission cities that are ready to put innovative approaches into practice. Running from 28 September to 6 November 2026, it focuses on the enabling conditions cities need to accelerate climate action, from new financing and governance models to technologies that can unlock implementation at scale. 

The three selected projects tackle very different challenges, but each addresses a barrier that many European cities will recognise. Their work will generate practical learning that can be adapted and replicated elsewhere. 

“We wanted to give cities already implementing innovative projects a further boost, using the remaining funding to support promising approaches, particularly in finance. The EU’s close collaboration helped make this possible, and we are excited by the progress these cities are making and the lessons they can share with cities across Europe. I also want to thank all the cities that submitted proposals. We are exploring further opportunities to support their ambitions, including through other resources where available,” said Thomas Osdoba, Programme Director at NetZeroCities. 

Bristol will establish a community energy accelerator bringing together the city council, a community energy cooperative and a private energy services company. The project will create the legal, financial and commercial framework needed to move municipal renewable energy and efficiency projects towards investment, starting with community buildings, social housing and a potential solar farm. The model is designed to show how cities can combine public, community and private capital to expand community-owned energy at scale. 

“This funding is a vote of confidence in Bristol’s ability to develop innovative solutions to reducing our impact on the climate. It recognises the strength of partnership working across the city and builds on many years of leadership and innovation from Bristol Energy Cooperative, Bristol City Leap, and the wider community energy sector.

“Community energy has a vital role to play in delivering a just transition, helping local people to take part in and benefit from the move to clean energy while creating jobs, investment and wider social value.

“Through the Bristol Community Energy Accelerator, we will bring together communities, the council and Bristol City Leap, to develop a pipeline of locally owned renewable energy projects that can attract further investment and deliver lasting benefits for Bristol’s communities.” said Councillor Tony Dyer, Leader of Bristol City Council

Leuven will develop a blended municipal investment fund to finance climate projects across social real estate, heat and the circular economy through a single, repeatable mechanism. The model will combine public first-loss capital, cross-subsidisation between projects and investment decisions that factor in climate impact alongside financial return. It is designed to provide a structure that other cities and public authorities could adapt and replicate. 

“Financing the transition to a climate-neutral and resilient city is a challenge facing cities across Europe. As part of its pioneering work, Leuven has been actively exploring innovative financial solutions for some time. With a grant of almost €900,000 from NetZeroCities through the LIFT programme, Leuven now has the opportunity to further strengthen its leading role in developing and testing innovative financing models. This support will enable the City of Leuven and Leuven 2030 to accelerate the launch of the Leuven Climate Fund and help bring a range of concrete climate projects in the fields of heating and circularity to investment readiness more quickly. As always, we are grateful to Europe for its continued confidence in Leuven’s pioneering role,” said Thomas Van Oppens, Deputy mayor for Climate, Finance and Digitalisation, City of Leuven.

Aarhus is looking to one of the city's most underused energy assets: its rooftops. The city will deploy and test a new generation of lightweight photovoltaic technologies on municipal buildings whose roofs cannot support conventional solar panels, opening up roof space that would otherwise remain unused. The aim is not only to expand solar generation in Aarhus, but also to develop a procurement and installation approach that other European cities can reuse on structurally constrained roofs. 

"LIFT enables us to deploy and test the latest innovations in lightweight solar panels, which have the potential to activate more urban surfaces for solar power production. We're looking forward to learning from the other two projects awarded funding from the European Commission for this call, as well as our other European colleagues working towards climate neutrality," said Rolf Johnsen, Head of Climate & Energy, City of Aarhus. 

The LIFT call builds on the experience of NetZeroCities' Enabling City Transformation (ECT) programme and marks a further step towards helping cities move from testing solutions to enabling innovations for whole-city transformation, generating practical and replicable learning at scale. Selected proposals will integrate the existing ECT portfolio of interventions that will address major implementation challenges commonly emerging across Mission Cities. 

The lessons generated by Bristol, Leuven and Aarhus will contribute to a wider body of knowledge for Mission Cities across Europe, helping other cities understand not only which solutions work, but what needs to be in place to make them possible. 

NetZeroCities manages the official platform for the EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, helping 112 selected cities reach climate neutrality by 2030. Learn more here: www.netzerocities.eu. More information about the LIFT programme https://netzerocities.eu/leveraging-innovation-and-financing-transformation-call-lift/