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SIBdev at the 19th European Week of Regions

As a side event of the 19th European Week of Regions and Cities, SIBdev Network has organized an online info session on 12th October 2021, coordinated by its partner city Baia Mare. The aim of the event was to share knowledge on EU level about the concept of social investment bonds (SIBs) and to showcase two best practices from partner cities in two different areas of social policy: the SIB model for education and employment in Fundão, Portugal and the SIB for mitigating youth homelessness in Aarhus, Denmark.

Hybrid working – Manchester approach for the co-creation of its’ draft IAP

The focus of Zero Carbon Cities (ZCC) is to help cities transition to carbon neutrality in line with science-based targets required in order to align with the Paris Agreement. Manchester is the Lead Partner for the network along with Bistrita, Modena, Tartu, Vilvoorde and Zadar.

To support this aim, each network city will produce an Integrated Action Plan (IAP) setting out how it will implement actions to support the ambition. The plan is an output of the city’s local stakeholder group (ULG – Urbact Local Group) and should be a co-creation of the city and the ULG.

Working collaboratively has been a challenge for city partners due to covid restrictions.  The Manchester team held a planning session to look at how it might engage its stakeholders in the production of the IAP.  It considered what stakeholders should be targeted (key and others) and what method of engagement would be most effective and provide most value.  As covid rules started to relax in the UK, Manchester resolved to organise a workshop to develop the city’s draft Integrated Action Plan.  It was clear that not all stakeholders would be able to meet physically so the project team determined that a hybrid workshop be created involving both physical and virtual participants.

Mandate produced from Manchester's first-ever community assembly on climate change

Manchester’s first ever Community Assembly on climate change enabled people from across the city to play a key role in shaping our response to the climate emergency!

The Assembly was facilitated by the Manchester based cooperative Envirolution with support from a coalition of partners including Manchester Climate Change Agency and Partnership and was partly funded the URBACT Zero Carbon Cities Project. Residents from all over Manchester took part during the summer of 2021 in a unique opportunity to play a key role in shaping the future of our city. It is only with our residents’ ideas, thoughts and input we can create a city that's greener, healthier, and more connected.

The Assembly ran from 9th August – 24th September and all the workshops took place in person in a Coronavirus conscious and responsible environment.

The project was delivered as part of Manchester Climate Change Agency’s (MCCA) ‘In Our Nature’ programme, which aims to engage people and communities across Manchester to find new and creative ways to inspire climate action. By collecting ideas, stories and actions the programme aims for people to have their say on what’s happening in the local area, find practical tips and get involved in local initiatives.

More about these projects can be found here: https://zerocarbonmanchester.commonplace.is

/ https://www.manchesterclimate.com/

Environmental charity Hubbub, the communications and campaigns lead for the ‘In Our Nature’ programme, also supported the assembly and made a documentary film about the project: https://www.hubbub.org.uk

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.

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.