Fair Energy Transition for All (FETA) is a pan-European initiative led by the King Baudouin Foundation in partnership with the Schneider Electric Foundation, bringing together philanthropic foundations, research-informed practitioners, cities, and policy actors.
- Phase 1 (2020–2023) responded to early signals of social resistance (including the French fuel protests) by conducting a large-scale listening exercise with 1,000 vulnerable citizens across Europe. This process generated concrete EU and national-level recommendations on how to design energy and climate policies that are socially inclusive and politically resilient.
- Phase 2 (2025–2028) moves from insight to action. It focuses on identifying, strengthening, and scaling existing community-led solutions; translating local practice into policy-relevant knowledge; and building a European learning architecture that connects citizens, cities, and institutions.
FETA directly addresses:
- Social and political backlash against climate policy
- Systemic and reputational risks arising from exclusion
- The lack of credible, people-centred transition models at scale
FETA’s Core Hypothesis
Energy poverty and fair transition challenges are characterised by multi-dimensional issues, complex power dynamics, fragmented governance across sectors and levels, the structural under-representation of marginalised voices in policy design. Inclusive energy transitions require portfolio-based, system-level approaches, not isolated pilot projects.
Phase 2 of FETA operationalises a theory of change centred on scaling what already works, while continuously generating learning that can inform policy and replication.
The FETA framework: Three mutually reinforcing pillars
1. SHINE – Scaling Proven, Community-Led Solutions
FETA supports a portfolio of ten exemplary initiatives selected through a participatory process involving experts and 53 vulnerable citizens from Poland, Denmark, Italy and France, and coordinated by Energy Cities. These initiatives operate across diverse European contexts—from inner-city neighborhoods to rural regions—and address affordable and efficient housing, energy access, skills, capacity-building, and access to information.
You can find the descriptions of the 10 selected solutions here, among which you can find the:
- Łódź Revitalisation Programme (Renovating homes, improving public spaces and strengthening community life in vulnerable urban neighbourhoods), led by the Municipality of Łódź (Poland)
- ASSERT (Supporting municipalities and local intermediaries to better address energy poverty among people with physical disabilities), led by RETE ASSIST (Italy)
- Reno-Solidaire Pack (Helping low-income homeowners renovate their homes while keeping housing affordable for the long term), led by the Community Land Trust Brussels (Belgium)
The initiatives are supported through a structured programme called the Escalator. Its purpose is to help projects grow and scale in complex political contexts, encourage peer learning across different settings, and increase their visibility and potential for replication.
Led by Genio, the Escalator brings together action research, capacity building, peer exchange, and expert mentoring by Schneider Electric. It strengthens the ability of local actors to amplify marginalised voices, scale innovative solutions in uncertain conditions, build alliances with public authorities, and turn practical experience into policy influence.
The programme combines strategic facilitation, input from expert speakers, and active participant engagement across six core modules. These modules are delivered through a mix of onsite and online sessions, with each module lasting five hours split over two sessions. The learning is further reinforced through targeted action research interviews and practical follow-up actions.
2. SHARE – A Pan-European Learning and Policy Network
Recognising cities as pivotal transition actors, FETA builds a Pan-European Network of Stakeholders, convening over 100 local and regional and national actors across public authorities, civil society, social service providers, and private actors.
Facilitated by ifok and Eurocities, the network structures peer learning across contexts, explores enabling conditions and barriers to replicate inspiring solutions, co-creates actionable policy recommendations.
Through a series of six thematic workshops (5 online and 1 onsite) (Sept 2026, Dec 2026, Feb 2027, May 2027, July 2027, Nov 2027), continuous online exchange, and curated knowledge products, SHARE translates local experience from the Escalator into policy intelligence relevant at local, national, and EU levels.
A newsletter is distributed quarterly to the members, including learnings, best practices, and case studies from the Escalator projects, stories and testimonials from vulnerable people, policy updates, invitations to the online meetings, workshop materials, discussion outputs.
You can join the FETA Community
3. BLOOM – Communicate, Advocate, Replicate
FETA’s advocacy and communications pillar ensures that evidence generated on the ground informs strategic policy debates.
Led by Eurocities, FETAII aligns local insights with key national and EU policy moments (Social Climate Plans, Citizens Energy Package, European Affordable Housing Plan etc.) and political moments (e.g. relevant Council Presidencies).
A final EU-level event (early 2028) to showcase results and launch the replication call. The aim of the second call is to offer support (financial support, impact investing, mentoring – tbd) to replicate best practices, drawing on the experience and the results of the previous steps.
The objective is not visibility for its own sake, but policy traction and replication capacity, connecting proven social innovations to institutional funding and policy frameworks.
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Are you interested in becoming part of the FETA Community? Join Eurocities and our partners and be part of the change: Join the FETA Community – FETA
