Five cities emerged victorious from the BMBF's "Energy-efficient city" competition and put their innovative concepts into practice in the years 2011-2017. The IZT was part of the accompanying research and was responsible for the survey of citizens of these cities in 2016/2017 as well as a survey of other municipal stakeholders in the competition. They were asked about previous findings, experiences and further implementation intentions. The results of the survey should help to better fulfil the climate protection goals in the competition cities.