In 2010, two women, Sarah Pugh and Laura Corfield co-founded Shift Bristol, fired up by the idea that what people needed in order to make that shift – to a more sustainable, eco-friendly, viable and happy existence – was some hands-on training.
Cities are critical actors in reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; the level of knowledge, skills, and capacity, especially regarding innovative project planning such as sustainable energy (SE) projects, is fundamental for cities to meet their untapped potential. A range of indicator-based frameworks have been developed, focusing on general city economic competitiveness, yet these are often disconnected from the actual city operation and processes relevant to the investment cycle of SE projects. This paper proposes an integrated methodology for developing a City Capability Assessment Framework focusing on city planning, financing, and implementation capacity for SE projects. A principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the results of a European city-survey to uncover areas highly relevant for the successful implementation of local SE projects. The insights gained aid policymakers to better understand implementation barriers, leading to the development of more effective actions and policy interventions towards the implementation of SE projects. The proposed framework can further enhance cities’ efforts with the implementation of local SE projects and guide potential investors to properly evaluate city capabilities and potential, when choosing local investment projects.
How can we digitalize our cities in the most efficient way? Should we? The panel discusses how urban governance can benefit from a digital transition and the void created when technology backfires.
The H2020 project SIMPLA supported local authorities in joining up their energy and mobility planning and delivered guidelines for integrated planning, which has been recognised by Europe's main observatory on urban mobility (ELTIS) as good practice.
SIMPLA, funded under the H2020 Energy Efficiency challenge, supported more than 80 municipalities in six countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Romania and Spain) to develop integrated energy and mobility plans. Thanks to the coaching programme established by the project, more than 1,000 public officers were reached and 28 integrated plans, composed of an energy plan, a mobility plan and a harmonisation report, were developed.
It has been a tumultuous time for the UN climate talks. The mass protests against social inequality in Chile prompted the country to give up its plan to host COP25 just a month before the…
Heating has been neglected in the EU’s climate and energy policies for many years. Meanwhile, the demand for guidance, knowledge transfer and exchange of experience has grown. To respond to this request, KeepWarm project partners, including ICLEI Europe, developed new training material and systematically collected materials from various high quality sources, making them accessible in one place: the KeepWarm Learning Centre.
URBACT aims to build the capacity of cities to work in a more integrated and participatory way through networks, through exchange and learning as well as through the action planning, implementation and transfer processes. URBACT also provides tools and delivers customised training events to support ongoing networks in their learning journey.
On September 22 2013, 50.9% of the Hamburg citizens voted in a referendum for the full remunicipalisation of the energy distribution grids in the city. The referendum was initiated by the citizen’s initiative ‘Our Hamburg – Our Grid’ (OHOG) and constituted the climax of an intense political controversy that lasted for more than three years. Through this vote Hamburg has received international attention and became a flagship example for remarkable civil engagement. In the international best-seller “This Changes Everything” (2014), Naomi Klein sees the driving motive in the people’s ‘desire for local power’. Indeed it is true that under the constitution of the City of Hamburg, a successful referendum has a binding effect, which left the City government no other option than to announce the implementation of the referendum decision and to start the remunicipalisation process immediately after the vote
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) urges the European Commission to consider establishing an exchange programme for 2018-2020 aimed at providing local and regional elected representatives with training on European policies. This programme would be based on the positive experiences gained from the pilot "Erasmus for local and regional representatives" project that was run in 2012-2013. It would help meet the need to better inform, assist and train elected local and regional representatives on how the European Union works and how European funds are used, and at the same time promote the exchange of experience and good practices.
More and more European Union Member States are recognising the potential value of Open Data and are acting upon it. Open Data portals are in place, increasingly backed by solid Open Data policies. But it is not only the national level that matters. For a successful national Open Data initiative, the whole publication chain should be taken into account. Cities have an important role to play here. Specifically the larger European cities publish a lot of data on topics such as urban planning, tourism, and increasingly real-time data in the transport and mobility area, such as datasets on available parking spots. Moreover, cities also benefit from the use of Open Data to tackle typical urban challenges such as congestion and pollution, and to improve the quality of urban public services and the interactivity between the local government and citizens.
Six bilateral visits, tens hours of discussion, around 20 places visited by Czech mayors in Waldviertel Kernland (WK) region, several inspirational places in the CR visited by Austrian partners – this is a brief summary of the experience exchange in terms of the project “100% RES communities”.
The GUST project from JPI Urban Europe’s Second Pilot Call exemplifies dissemination and implementation of the project results. GUST stands for ‘Governance…
Pour des questions de coût, de souveraineté et de contrôle de ses choix futurs, la métropole de Toulouse choisit de développer sa propre plateforme de stockage et de croisement de données.
The CIVITAS Tool Inventory is an online database of over 200 tools and methods that helps local authorities make better informed decisions about which planning tools to apply in their given local context. It features a broad range of tools and methods – including guidelines, software, manuals, mobile apps, games, and planning approaches – that are useful for all steps of the urban mobility planning process, from scenario building and measure selection to implementation and evaluation. To find the tool most relevant to your needs, you can filter the selection in several ways:
From 18 to 27th October 2019 we started the first Wetopia Academy during ‘Open Design Afrika’ in Cape Town (ZA). With interventions and workshops in the townships, inspiration days with local and international ‘Wetopians’ and a learning program for policy makers, we actively stimulate new ways to make a city together.
The second round of trainings in the framework of the project “Empowering local authorities and civil society to deliver solutions with participative democracy”, supported by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) programme, took place during the last week of November 2019.
Giving cities and other partners a chance to exchange knowledge, provide inspiration and find new solutions helps build the case for evidence-based policy-making using best case examples of integrated urban development.
Becoming a leading cycling city does not happen overnight. It takes ambition, dedication, determination and vision.
CIVITAS Handshake has made mentoring a cornerstone of its knowledge transfer process.
Indeed, it is the thread running through the three main learning and development processes; assessment and evaluation; immersive study activities; and transition management.
Three "Cycling Capitals" serve as Handshake's mentors - Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Copenhagen (Denmark), and Munich (Germany). Considered as cycling role models by cities worldwide, their immense expertise is the beating heart of Handshake's knowledge exchange and capacity building.
On 30 April, EASME organised a webinar on the finance topics in the Energy Efficiency Call 2019 for potential applicants. The presentations and the recordings of the webinar are now available.
The Financing Energy Efficiency webinar covered the topics on integrated home renovation services and project development assistance, innovative finacing and mainstreaming energy efficiency finance.
You will find below the links to the presentations:
The case for investing in the skills and competencies of public officials, alongside organizational development, has been gathering momentum for some time. Within a busy landscape of research and activity, some of the more eye-catching contributions have come from Demoshelsinki (link is external), the OECD (link is external) and NESTA (link is external). It has also been a recurring issue within the Action Planning processes of the Urban Agenda (link is external) for the EU Partnerships – for example Digital Transitions and Jobs and Skills. Capacity building is also one of the three key features in the proposed European Urban Initiative, contained in the new draft ERDF Regulations.
Think Resilience is an online course featuring acclaimed energy educator Richard Heinberg. It explores the crises of the 21st century and how we can buil
About this Course Unemployment. Inflation. Protectionism. Economic bubble. Debt. Fiscal deficit. These are not just terms in an economics textbook; these are real-life challenges tha
This new tool - Moblity as a Service (MaaS) Readiness Level Indicators for local authorities – offers a new approach to understand how local authorities can speed up the process of MaaS in their local context. It can be used as a discussion tool and a check list to develop measures in the local authorities. The tool has been developed as part of the CIVITAS ECCENTRIC project and was launched at the CIVITAS Forum 2017 in Torres Vedras. Find out more in the document below.
By offering this unique MOOC, the University of Groningen and Energy Academy Europe provide an understanding of major sustainability issues around the global energy system and the urgency of the energy transition. It identifies the key factors of each aspect of the energy transition, and provides the knowledge and framework to analyse the question yourself.
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