REEN law: where do French local authorities stand in 2026?

If you are a CIO, a general manager, an elected official or a staff member in a municipality or inter-municipal authority of more than 50,000 inhabitants, the REEN law (France's law on reducing the environmental footprint of digital technology) applies to you directly. Passed at the end of 2021, it requires local authorities to develop a responsible digital strategy. Five years later, where do things really stand? Which obligations have kicked in? How can you raise your staff's awareness effectively? Let's take stock.

REEN law: what article 35 requires from local authorities

The REEN law (Réduction de l'Empreinte Environnementale du Numérique), enacted on November 15, 2021, is the first French law entirely devoted to the environmental impact of digital technology. And for good reason: digital technology accounts for 4.4% of France's carbon footprint in 2022, or 29.5 million tonnes of CO2 emitted over the year, and its footprint could triple by 2050 without collective action (ADEME-Arcep, 2025).

The law is built around five main objectives:

• Raise awareness and train people on responsible digital issues
• Limit the replacement of digital devices
• Develop ecologically virtuous uses
• Promote less energy-hungry data centers
• Set up a responsible digital strategy in local territories (article 35)

To understand the broader stakes of responsible digital, you can read our complete guide to responsible digital.

Article 35, the most structuring one for local authorities, requires municipalities and inter-municipal cooperation bodies (EPCIs) of more than 50,000 inhabitants to develop a responsible digital strategy. More than 85 French local authorities are directly concerned.

The regulatory timeline set two milestones:

• January 1, 2023: a preliminary work program (environmental impact assessment + review of the stakeholders in the territory)
• January 1, 2025: publication of a complete responsible digital strategy, including quantified targets, tracking indicators and an action plan

Decree no. 2022-1084 of July 29, 2022 sets out the expected content of this strategy. To go further, the government portal ecoresponsable.numerique.gouv.fr centralizes all the methodological tools.

2026 status: where do French local authorities stand?

It is a question rarely asked in public, but it is crucial for knowing where to act: since January 1, 2025, all the local authorities concerned are supposed to have published their responsible digital strategy. In practice, many are still rolling it out.

Several reasons explain this gradual compliance:

No penalty provided by the law. This is a little-known but decisive point: in its current form, the REEN law provides no penalty for local authorities that fail to meet the responsible digital strategy obligation. The risk is therefore mainly a reputational risk and one of consistency with the authority's CSR and climate commitments. In practice, many elected officials and general managers prioritize legally binding topics.

Real technical complexity. Building a responsible digital strategy requires a digital carbon footprint assessment of the IT estate, a review of service providers, and consultation with stakeholders in the territory. For an authority of 50,000 inhabitants, it is a cross-cutting project that can occupy the IT department, procurement, HR and the sustainability department for several months.

A lack of internal resources. Many local authorities have no identified responsible digital lead. The topic often falls to the IT department, already stretched on cybersecurity and digital transformation.

Rennes, Rouen: the pioneering local authorities in responsible digital

Some local authorities began their efforts well before the deadline and now serve as references:

• The city and metropolitan area of Rennes obtained the Responsible Digital Label (Label Numérique Responsable) from the Institut du Numérique Responsable (INR), making them pioneers in France
• The Rouen Normandie metropolitan area is cited as exemplary, notably thanks to Doralie Besnard-Guiol, now secretary general of the INR, one of the 6 responsible digital personalities to follow in France

ANCT, INR, MiNumEco: the free resources to use to take action

If your local authority is still building its strategy, several free and comprehensive resources exist:

• The ANCT methodological framework (the French national agency for territorial cohesion) offers a turnkey template with calculation and inventory tools
• The Methodological Guide to Responsible Digital Strategy for Territories, co-published by the INR, Les Interconnectés and the Banque des Territoires, is the in-depth reference
• The ecoresponsable.numerique.gouv.fr portal of the interministerial mission for eco-responsible digital (MiNumEco) centralizes good practices

The 6 required areas of a responsible digital strategy

The decree of July 29, 2022 specifies that the responsible digital strategy must cover several areas. In practice, these are the 6 areas to work on:

• Sustainable public procurement: prioritize refurbished equipment, and apply the AGEC law, which since 2021 requires public buyers to acquire between 20% and 100% of goods from reuse, depending on the category
• Sustainable management of the equipment life cycle: extend the period of use, organize reuse at end of life, and partner with organizations like Ecodair for a second life
• Eco-design of digital sites and services: apply the General Framework for the Eco-design of Digital Services (RGESN), published in May 2024 by Arcep, Arcom and ADEME, a near-essential reference in public tenders
• Connected and sustainable territory: an open data approach, valuing useful data rather than accumulating it
• Public awareness: raise residents' and staff's awareness of the environmental issues of digital technology and of digital inclusion
• Digital security and staff training: include cybersecurity in the approach, and train elected officials and public employees

Of these 6 areas, raising the awareness of staff and elected officials is probably the most complex to handle: it cannot be solved with a purchasing budget or a technical decision. It requires reaching each employee in their daily routine, whether on site or remote.

Raising awareness among local government staff: 5 formats tested

Newsletter, intranet, e-learning, conference, workshop... There are many awareness tools. Here is a quick comparison to help you choose:

The finding is clear: traditional tools reach either few people, or only superficially. With remote work now common in local government, large-scale awareness training has become a real challenge.

To meet this challenge, a new format has gained ground in recent years in pioneering local authorities: the serious escape game.

The serious escape game: a format designed for local authorities

In practice, an educational serious escape game immerses staff in a virtual or in-person escape game, in teams, with a learning objective built into the puzzles. On responsible digital, your staff collectively explore:

• Everyday digital habits and their real impact
• The invisible hardware architecture of digital technology (data centers, devices, critical resources)
• The environmental, social and human impacts of digital activity
• The concrete actions to take at different scales, from the workstation to equipment choices

Why the serious escape game works in local authorities

Short and easy to deploy: 1.5 hours, in French or English, for 3 to 500 staff members at the same time. Works for multi-site setups, remote work and team seminars.

Strong engagement: 83% of participants say they feel motivated by gamified training, compared with 28% for classic training. The format brings on board the staff least interested in the topic, which is crucial for a real transformation effort.

Documented compliance: after each session, you receive a participation report (number of staff reached, engagement rate) that you can use as a steering indicator for your responsible digital strategy, or in your annual sustainable development report.

Seasonality: Digital Cleanup Day, held every year in March (March 14 in 2026), is the ideal occasion to launch an annual momentum. See our 9 concrete ideas to run a Digital Cleanup Day in a company or local authority.

They trust us: the Ministry of the Interior, EPCIs and metropolitan areas

More than 100 organizations and 15,000 employees have already been trained through our responsible digital serious escape game, including public bodies such as the French Ministry of the Interior. Our format is designed to fit the specific constraints of local authorities: multi-site, a mix of in-person and remote work, non-tech staff, budget constraints.

Turning a regulatory obligation into an opportunity

The REEN law is not just one more regulatory constraint: it is a chance for your local authority to build an approach consistent with your climate commitments, to reduce IT costs (savings of 20 to 40% are generally seen on IT spending), and to bring your staff on board in a collective project that goes beyond technology alone.

The main challenge is not the administrative setup of the strategy: the resources exist (ANCT, INR, Les Interconnectés, MiNumEco). The real challenge is to keep this strategy alive day to day among staff, over time, without putting off those who are not asking for it at the start.

Are you in charge of your local authority's responsible digital strategy? Do you want to raise your staff's awareness in a concrete and engaging way?

👉 Discover our responsible digital serious escape game

👉 Book a 15-minute demo with our team