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In Focus
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SPARCS City Forum webinar on Citizen Engagement
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Monday 15th of June, SPARCS organised an internal webinar for partners and stakeholders from Lighthouse and Fellow cities. The webinar focused on Citizen engagement, one of the key points of the project. First, Pieter Bult from Fraunhofer gave an introduction explaining the rise of awareness for citizen engagement in urban planning and the role & impact it plays in the SPARCS project. After that, it was time to hear from real-life experiences in SPARCS cities.
Lviv’s Dzvenyslava Chelepis presented their successful transition towards eGovernment, and although both citizens and municipal representatives sometimes need some time to adapt, a large part of the population finds its way to the municipal services online. Yuliya Boiko from the Council Secretariat of the Lviv city council followed with a presentation on public budgeting in Lviv, where projects are funded after a public voting process. Participation in voting in 2019 rose to 13.4% of the total eligible population of Lviv, corresponding with 103 726 citizens.
On the other side of Europe, Sigurlaug Johansdottir showed us Reykjavik´s democratic processes in city planning. Through the My-district platform, 696 projects have been executed since 2012 and 91 more will be implemented this summer. Although the city experiences the project as labour intensive, "it gives great value in the 'discussion' when the ideas are reviewed within the administration and gives both administration and politics a feel for the districts; how the people feel and what they need". A joyful presentation by Andri & Bjork of the service design team in Reykjavik showed us insight in the Green House. They also shared that getting engaged with city development was trendy
in Reykjavik, which may sound like a dream to others.
Mary Uhlig from Leipzig emphasised the need for engagement processes on multiple scales (city strategy, neighborhood development, street implementation) and levels (information, consultation, involvement & co-production). There was so much to tell & show, that a double amount of time could’ve been filled as well. Alessandro Colombo, from the SPARCS research partner SPI closed the webinar by presenting the Glossary of the Quality Assessment Template and giving further input and showcasing different ways of engaging with citizens.
We hope that all participants gained a lot of valuable insight and learned something new during our webinar! If you want to read more about citizen engagement in SPARCS and its cities, please visit our website.
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Visit the SPARCS What’s new section!
Discover latest news, events and webinars from across the smart city community.
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VIDEO: INTRODUCING SPARCS
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Cities consume over two-thirds of the world's energy and account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions.
That’s why in SPARCS, we enable, inform and support the efficient urban transformation into carbon free Positive Energy communities.
The impacts of SPARCS will span from economic growth, improved quality of life, and environmental benefits feeding into the EC policy framework for climate and energy, the SET plan and UN Sustainable Development goals.
One of our top priorities is to set up inclusive management and planning models, ecosystems and processes by involving companies, city planning and technical departments, civil society, and researchers.
In SPARCS, we enable the Urban Energy transformation and ensure the transition towards low-carbon cities, clean energy, industry and innovation by focusing on making cities inclusive, resilient and sustainable.
SPARCS: Sustainable energy Positive & zero cARbon CommunitieS
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VIDEO: SPARCS OBJECTIVES AND GOALS
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The objective of SPARCS is to tackle the challenges that cities are called to solve, by creating the necessary ecosystems for the urban energy transformation.
Our goal is to achieve Citizen-led inclusive free carbon urban community by integrating: technologies for energy positivity in buildings and districts, citizen engagement, city planning and governance, flexible grid management and energy storage, and e-mobility as an energy system element.
With the help of our circular economic framework, the collaboration between public and private entities and the involvement of innovation-oriented investors, professionals, companies and citizens we seek to ensure a long-term political commitment from cities and in-depth understanding of challenges.
And the creation of Green city business models with their societal, environmental and economic implications on local and global scale, feed by public-private partnership investment.
Together, we develop a shared Bold City - Vision 2050.
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SPARCS POLICY DIALOGUE IN ESPOO ON ENERGY COMMUNITIES
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Image: Energy Community within a Housing Company (Courtesy of Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Energy, Publication 39/2018)
In spite of long and dark winters, solar energy is a promising solution even in Finnish climates. Excellent scalability, easy integration into urban roofs and facades, and promising cost efficiency makes solar energy and photovoltaics, in particular, a key solution for Positive Energy Districts.
In March, the SPARCS team in Espoo identified an opportunity to engage with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and participate in drafting the law. Official statements to the draft are formally requested by an online portal, and in this case the public had 2 weeks time to submit their response. As the SPARCS team includes both city representatives and technical experts from VTT, a joint statement was proposed.
A Task Force within the SPARCS team in Espoo discussed the contents of the draft and possible concerns to be raised. In result, both the formal statement and a report on this policy dialogue process were prepared.
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„DIGITAL DAY“ IN GERMANY WITH MANY ACTIVITIES IN AND ABOUT LEIPZIG!
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The first nationwide Digital Day (ger. Digitaltag) took place on 19th of June and the city of Leipzig participated with many interesting activities all about different aspects of digitalisation. Of course, SPARCS was one of the main topics discussed in Podcasts and Videos. The Digital Day was the perfect platform to inform about ideas, goals and specific strategies which will be implemented through the SPARCS project in Leipzig! Interested residents explored information about the project in general and how they can benefit from it in the future.
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A LARGE STEP TAKEN TOWARDS ELECTRIFICATION OF REYKJAVÍK'S PORTS
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The city of Reykjavík, together with the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Associated Icelandic Ports, Veitur Utilities, Samskip and Eimskip have recently signed a declaration for installing high voltage land connectors for freight ships at the Sundabakki and Vogabakki piers in Reykjavik. The installation will allow freight ships to use renewable electricity from the Icelandic power grid instead of burning oil, while in harbour. This will be the first step in offering electric connection from land to larger ships in Iceland.
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CITY OF LVIV WINS A GOLDEN AWARD FOR ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL BEST PRACTICE
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This news and image are derived from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) article produced by Jane Ross named "EBRD announces winners of the 2020 Sustainability Awards".
"The City of Lviv in Ukraine took home a Golden Award for Environmental & Social Best Practice."
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EXPLORE SMART ENERGY SOLUTIONS: MAKINGCITY & SPARCS
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Mari Hukkalainen, senior scientist from VTT, presented SPARCS demonstrations as best practice case studies for smart energy solutions in EIP SCC’s online matchmaking event. The event was held in a webinar form, and an audience of over 151 people had the opportunity to ask direct questions from presenters. As an example, SPARCS demonstrations in Espoo were introduced shortly, with giving insight about the positive energy block solutions in Lippulaiva in Espoonlahti district in Espoo.
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CITYCON IS CONSTRUCTING A NEW SHOPPING CENTER IN ESPOONLAHTI IN ESPOO, FINLAND
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The new Lippulaiva will open in spring 2022. The leasable area of Lippulaiva will be 44,000 square meters and it will house approximately 80 retailers and services. In the same block, there will also be 8 residential buildings and a senior house. A new metro station will be opened beneath Lippulaiva in 2023.
Lippulaiva is acting as a demo-site in SPARCS-project.
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CELEBRATING SOLIDARITY ACROSS EU CITIES WITH #CITYFROMMYWINDOW
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Since March, lockdowns have been reinforced by numerous states in Europe. The SCC01 projects launched a social media campaign on April called #CityFromMyWindow to promote solidarity among citizens.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, citizens have been advised by their national governments to stay at home as much as possible. Given the constrained freedom, many have found it hard to cope with the lockdown. All 17 SCC01 projects joined forces and introduced a month-long social campaign entitled #CityFromMyWindow. Everyone in social media was requested to mention the hashtag and upload a photo of their city from their window.
More than 50 cities were involved in this initiative. In the process, 511 mentions of the hashtag were gathered, with a potential audience of more than 87,000 Twitter users. Other influential social media accounts like EU_ENV, EUClimateAction and SmartCityexpo joined the SCC01 community in this solidarity wave.
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Upcoming Events
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01/09/2020
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SmartEnCity Academy for Zero Carbon Transition - Lesson 4
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ONLINE
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02/09/2020 - 03/09/2020
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URBIS SMART CITY FAIR
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BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC
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02/09/2020 - 03/09/2020
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Nordic Edge
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STAVANGER, NORWAY
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