ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes an approach to assess the capacity and readiness of institutions to adopt co-benefits-oriented measures into their policy processes. It takes the viewpoint that to achieve environmental co-benefits, it is worth recognising the levels of human factors and potential that would accumulatively support vital organisational change for better local environmental governance. A grading instrument, using a fundamental mathematical concept, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), is demonstrated to guide data collection and populate the tool. The chapter discusses the importance and role of systematic tools to support co-benefits governance. To illustrate how governance aspects could be included in the design and development of decision-support tools for city-level decision-making, the chapter uses local energy governance as an example. It briefly provides some context to local energy issues and then we discuss the conceptual underpinnings of a specific set of evaluation tools created for local energy climate co-benefits with a special emphasis on the qualitative or governance aspects of co-benefits-oriented interventions.
