Notes #2/2025: Intermediate Targets Help Advance the Energy Transition
Informal translation of a blog post on bmc.nl.
Intermediate Targets Help Advance the Energy Transition
Municipalities have ambitious climate and energy transition goals. With some local variation, these goals are generally aimed at 2050, far beyond the current and next governing terms. In addition, these goals are often abstractâsuch as being "climate neutral"âwhich makes them difficult to concretize. As a result, progress can be interpreted differently, making management and control challenging. A possible solution? Concrete, measurable, and locally appropriate intermediate targets.
The Challenge of Administrative Oversight and Accountability
For municipal councils, it is a challenge to effectively fulfill their controlling role when assessing the executive. Depending on political affiliation, a political party can present any progressâor the lack thereofâas being in line with the objectives. It is also difficult for the executive to properly frame achieved successes, as not every visible action truly contributes to the energy transition. Meanwhile, many crucial efforts that have a significant and lasting impact often remain invisible.
Call for Concrete and Measurable Intermediate Targets
As a result, the call for concrete intermediate targets is increasingly heard. Aldermen seek measurable goals to substantiate their political efforts. Municipal councils request intermediate targets to effectively carry out their supervisory responsibilities. The municipal bureaucracy needs them to steer effectively toward realization. Formulating such interim goals can be a useful step in translating grand ambitions into achievable milestones.
The Role of Coalition Agreements
The coalition agreements for the coming electoral term offer a natural opportunity to establish these milestones. Moreover, parties will find it difficult to ignore such concrete, measurable milestones. They provide excellent points of reference for continuing existing policies. After all, parties cannot sidestep the energy transition, not least because of increasingly specific legal obligations and persistent challenges such as grid congestion.
Considerations When Setting Intermediate Targets
Setting interim goals is not easy and requires careful deliberation, especially in an energy transition characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The following perspectives are important:
Technical Perspective: The transition to climate neutrality does not follow a linear decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. Developing and implementing policies takes time, causing initial changes to be slow, with potential acceleration later on. In the long term, the transition may slow again as remaining challenges become increasingly complex. The exact shape of this curve is difficult to predict and varies by municipality and sector.
Administrative Perspective: Steering toward long-term goals demands determination and an adaptive, learning-oriented governance style. Short-term goals require strict direction and fewer "feel-good" activities with little impact but high visibility, such as a municipal climate week. Moreover, short-term goals carry the risk of losing integration and missing unexpected opportunitiesâparticularly if such opportunities do not measurably contribute to an interim goal but do help achieve the abstract end goal. It is therefore essential to establish (sector-specific) interim targets with solid justification and to recognize their limitations.
Strategic Perspective: Politicians want to show results. Short-term goals can therefore unintentionally lead to a focus on "low-hanging fruit." However, the energy transition is a structural process, not a collection of separate actions to check off interim goals. Although quick wins are attractive, they can complicate the necessary next steps and widen the gap between residents who can participate in the energy transition and those who cannot yet.
BMC Supports Municipalities in Formulating Clear Intermediate Targets
Setting intermediate targets is a powerful tool to make the energy transition more manageable administratively. However, it requires a careful balance between measurability, administrative flexibility, and strategic considerations. BMC assists municipalities in formulating realistic yet ambitious intermediate targets that fit their local context and ambitions. We do this based on data, our extensive knowledge of the energy transition, experience in the public sector, and insight into administrative processes.