Sustainable energy transition: business and local authorities
2025-09-04 On 2 September 2025, the thirteenth Energy Forum took place at Leuphana University Lüneburg, organised jointly by the Lower Saxony Climate Protection and Energy Agency (KEAN), the ECOLOG Institute and the Foundation for Financing and Financial Management. Under the title ‘Status and prospects of the energy transition: What have we achieved and where does the road ahead lead us?’, scientists and practitioners discussed the progress, challenges and future paths of the energy transition.
Report by Pia Redenius und Philip van Stuyvenberg
The panel ‘Sustainable Energy Transition: Economy and Local Authorities’ addressed the question: ‘What is the situation regarding sustainability and climate protection in local authorities and companies?’ Prof. Dr. Harald Heinrichs from the School of Sustainability at Leuphana University Lüneburg moderated the discussion on this topic with Pia Redenius, also from Leuphana University Lüneburg, Lea Welzel, Energy and Policy Officer at the Lüneburg-based family business Clage, and Oliver Waltenrath, Head of the Climate Protection Department of the Harburg district.
Pia Redenius began by providing a scientific overview of the topic, presenting findings from surveys conducted by the Lower Saxony Business Sustainability Barometer (BNBN) and the Lower Saxony Municipal Sustainability Barometer (KNBN). These surveys show that businesses recognise sustainability as an important issue and have a holistic understanding of it. However, only around a third of the companies surveyed have an ambitious climate target – and many do not consider the corporate measures taken to date to be sufficient to achieve the Paris climate target. In municipalities, on the other hand, climate protection tends to be more of a focus, and ambitious climate targets are widespread, especially in districts and cities. Here, too, however, 68% consider the measures to be (somewhat) insufficient. It is also significant that local authorities and businesses do not see each other as driving forces. This underlines the importance of cooperation and networking on the path to greater sustainability, which has so far only taken place to a limited extent.
Lea Welzel contributes the corporate perspective. She emphasises that, from a business point of view, excessive bureaucracy is a major obstacle to the implementation of sustainability measures, but that bureaucracy is often necessary to ensure the comparability and measurability of measures. A similar picture emerges in the BNBN, where companies make a clear distinction between bureaucracy and regulations. According to Welzel, certifications such as ISO 14001 or ISO 50001, as well as regular external audits and internal training, can strengthen a sustainable corporate culture in the long term.
From the perspective of local authorities, Oliver Waltenrath describes climate protection as a ‘cyclical business’: sometimes opportunities arise almost by themselves, sometimes progress is slow and laborious. The main obstacles are a lack of financial and human resources and the complex handling of subsidies.
In conclusion, Harald Heinrichs emphasises that sustainability should not be seen as a compulsory exercise for companies and local authorities, but rather as a source of innovation that opens up new opportunities. These include potential savings in climate protection and the energy transition. At the local authority level, he sees data monitoring as an important tool for creating comparability and a long-term orientation. Regulatory law (e.g. urban land-use planning) could also be used more effectively for climate protection, and measures to combat biodiversity loss and strengthen climate adaptation could be expanded. Overall, sustainability is best achieved through a clear political framework and support, as well as through exchange, cooperation and joint alliances. Climate targets can only be achieved if local authorities, businesses and science join forces.
Further findings from the BNBN and KNBN are published in the Schriftenreihe Nachhaltigkeit, Politik, Gesellschaft (ISSN 2942-6669).