Networks and cities' news

Understanding the “Social” Science behind Carbon budgeting – a mid term reflection

In May 2020 phase 2 of the Zero Carbon Cities embarked on the challenge of developing their own Carbon budgets aided by the URBACT methodology.

This adventure coincided with lockdowns throughout Europe and the end of face-to-face meeting.

Within the ZCC network we had already planned online meetings for our sub-theme gatherings as reducing Carbon for travel is essential to the underlying values of our network, nevertheless it did substantially impact the local gathering of actors to build a “carbon budget” culture.

Modena and its ZCC participatory process

2021 represents an important year for the City of Modena when the EU project URBACT ZCC participatory process has come to its full implementation.

In fact, despite the Covid-19 emergency that has not allowed mostly in presence initiatives, the 2021 has been characterised by:

- 6 ULG local meetings (from February to December 2021), most of them held online, adding up to the 3 ULGs of the end of 2020 (from September to November 2020);

- the finalisation of the local pilot action, with the involvement of high school and university students which resulted in the Climate-KIC Climathon initiative “Smuoviamo I Torrazzi! / Let’s move Torrazzi”, a competition on sustainable mobility.

My Green Week in Grosseto

Ten European cities met at the end of November in Grosseto to discover the city and to plan strategies about the revitalization of the historical centres. the visit has been carried out in the within of the plan “I Place”, which involves Grosseto Municipality with nine other European cities, with the aim of proposing sustainable economic development strategies and an integrated action plan aimed at enhancing market niches and generating ecosystems of urban innovation.

Bistrita's Summer 'Sustainable Urban Mobility Campaign'

The Small-Scale Action carried out by the Municipality of Bistrita refers to a “Sustainable Urban Mobility Campaign”, trying to encourage citizens to use sustainable alternative means of transport, to foster cycling culture and to promote these means.

Also, Bistrita municipality is concerned with protecting the environment, reducing CO2, thus carries out in the framework of the SSA a series of education, information and awareness actions.

Experimenting with public space in the inner city – the Summer Street in Turku

Turku is home to 193,200 inhabitants and is Finland’s third largest city. It is located at the Baltic Sea and is well connected in the Baltic regions to the surrounding countries. Its inner city got rebuilt after the Great Fire of Turku in 1827 and is today structured in rectangular blocks with wide avenues as the central access routes. Central elements of the city centre are the river Aura running at the southern edge and seven hills, both forming the centre’s topography. Historically, green spaces have been concentrated on the hills resulting steep green parks and less green structures in the more level parts of the inner city. Public space alongside the river Aura got revamped to a kilometres long stretch of high quality pubic space including a national park in the last decades.

Turku works on further improving its city centre to an attractive location for living, working, shopping and leisure. One question is how to deal with the streetscape in the centre which it today holding sufficient space for pedestrians, but concentrates providing space for cars and other motorised vehicles. Turku used the opportunity Space4People holds to experiment with a different set of street use showcasing to residents, shopkeepers, gastronomy and visitors how their streets could look like.

Food Policies at EU level: sharing experiences and approaches

The setting up of food policies at European level is a very important process toward the achievement of sustainaibility goals at local and global level. There are some recent and effective experiences that are driving the changes in the food system. Let's see how they works and the cities involved.