A participatory multi-criteria decision framework for prioritizing SECAP actions: evidence from European cities

Cities are central to climate action but face fragmented governance, competing objectives and resource constraints. Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) and similar local climate plans are widely adopted, yet implementation tends to reflect political feasibility and institutional capacity more than stated sustainability goals. This paper presents a participatory multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework designed to support municipalities in prioritizing climate and energy actions under such constraints. The framework integrates five dimensions – environmental, economic, social, technical and institutional – while explicitly incorporating political acceptability, implementation capacity and cross-sectoral synergies. Applied to SECAPs of Zagreb (Croatia), Maribor (Slovenia) and Litoměřice (Czechia), it reveals systematic misalignments between declared ambitions and implicit planning priorities. Results show that institutional and economic feasibility dominate decision-making, while environmental and social benefits are often underweighted. Sensitivity testing highlights how different decision-makers’ value orientations shift action rankings, yet the stability of top priorities demonstrates the framework’s robustness. By identifying overlooked synergies, the framework enables more transparent, inclusive and cost-effective planning. More than 80% of actions across case cities also exhibited untapped synergies between mitigation and adaptation. Unlike conventional benchmarking tools, it provides municipalities with a lightweight, replicable method for both ex-ante prioritization and ex-post evaluation of local climate plans. Beyond immediate planning support, the framework strengthens institutional learning, enhances policy coherence and helps align local implementation with broader national and EU climate objectives.