The ASSUMER project aims to address the urgent challenge of summer energy poverty, an issue that remains largely absent from European policy agendas, despite its growing consequences as a result of climate change and increasingly frequent heatwaves.
Vulnerable households face severe health and social risks, intensified by poor housing conditions, urban heat islands and the lack of passive cooling. National Energy Poverty Observatories provide essential data and policy guidance, however, being policy oriented, cannot ensure that local actors transform strategies into concrete actions and adapt policies to local needs. The ASSUMMER project will support and complement them by establishing operational, multi-actor Summer Energy Poverty National Coordination Structures (SEP-NCS) in seven Euro-Med countries (Italy, Spain, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus), with the aim to coordinate policy actors to implement coherent actions against summer energy poverty.
In each project pilot country, Coordination Structures will be created and implement systematic governance processes through dedicated activities, meetings and evaluations, strengthen local capacity of frontline actors with mentorship and peer to peer exchange, co-create and develop practical resources and training tools, support evidence-based policy-making with national policy briefs, EU-level dialogues and structured communication with the observatories. The overarching aim is to provide tools, knowledge and systemic resources that will bridge national policy frameworks with local implementation.
These efforts will provide the foundation for achieving the transferability and long-term sustainability of the project results, first at the national level and progressively towards the EU-level, with the support of a Mediterranean Coordination Board and a European Coordination Board respectively.
The ASSUMMER project is funded by the Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE) under Grant Agreement 101293845.
