Flipping Challenges, Unleashing Solutions: Insights from"Between Smart & Green" Solution Rooms

INTRODUCTION

On 20 June 2023, cities and other urban stakeholders mingled in the hallways and rooms of the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart, Germany for an Urban Future side event - "Between Smart & Green", hosted by BABLE Smart Cities, Gemeente Breda and their EU-funded project GreenQuays.

In the afternoon, BABLE Smart Cities' DACH Lead, Nina Steinh?user , opened the floor after more networking to explain 'Solution Rooms', hosted by three city representatives who brought key challenges with them for discussion. After the city presented the challenge they brought with them, partners presented their perspectives and participants commented and engaged to try and come to concrete outcomes.

1. The City of Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany with Dr. Montserrat Miramontes , Transport & Mobility Manager

About Fürstenfeldbruck: Stadt Fürstenfeldbruck Rathaus is a town in Bavaria, Germany, situated 32 kilometres west of Munich. In 2021, the town initiated the development of a framework and strategic plan for sustainable mobility. Collaborating with citizens, the city council, neighbouring municipalities, and internal staff, they analyzed the existing situation and established long-term goals for future mobility. The plan encompasses a 12-year timeframe and will be regularly updated on an annual basis.

Challenge: How can the city of Fürstenfeldbruck tackle the challenge of long planning and implementation cycles and implement step-by-step sustainable mobility solutions in the city? Sub-challenges included limited financial resources and staff, conflicts over space allocation, and establishing mobility hubs. The participating partners were Anna Leonie Brusius from e-mobil BW GmbH , Nadine Wehking from MAHLE chargeBIG , and Marta Margarit from Global Mobility Call .

Solutions: Initially, the discussion focused on e-mobility due to the expertise of two partners. The city gained insights from MAHLE's use case in Lorch, another partner city. However, other topics were also explored. Funding and staffing proved to be a significant challenge for implementing sustainable mobility solutions, leading to a brain drain to nearby Munich. Three main approaches were proposed to address Fürstenfeldbruck's issues. First, embracing digitalization and automating processes to save time. Second, seek partnerships with companies and organizations for support. Third, engaging citizens to understand their desired solutions. Additionally, changing people's behaviour, as excessive and unnecessary movement contributes to the challenge, was suggested but acknowledged as a difficult task.

One participant suggested: "Don’t try to find the big solution for the next 30 years, small steps are the most important part."

2. The Municipality of Breda, the Netherlands with Veerle Hemerik , Project Manager of GreenQuays

About Breda: Gemeente Breda is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Brabant. Currently, the Municipality of Breda is changing the quays of the Nieuwe Mark by greening the walls and quays with trees, plants (including on walls), and moss. The municipality aims to realise the results of this test in a final form through the GreenQuays project and subsequently implement it along the entire length of all quay walls of the Nieuwe Mark. In collaboration with the GreenQuays project, they intend to further develop and test "green" technology specifically designed to support the development of a vertical ecosystem and create favourable conditions for the growth of herbaceous plants, ferns, and moss.

Challenge: How can the GreenQuays project upscale its solution within the city from the current pilot?

Solutions: The learnings of the GreenQuays project can be transferred and extended to other parts of the river in Breda. The partners and participants in the sessions addressed providing new ways of assessing a cost-benefit analysis. This is important as providing a reliable cost-benefit analysis can secure impact without funding. A holistic approach is important to also account for external effects of nature-based solutions. It was therefore noted that more measurements should be done monitoring the impact on health, life quality, CO2 savings, biodiversity and more. It was also suggested that urban farming projects could connect this initiative to a broader scope, inducing local confidence and support.

3. The City of Munich, Germany with Alexander Lang , Head of Climate Neutral City and Smart City

About Munich: Munich is the capital and most populous city of the Free State of Bavaria. With a population of over 1,500,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich has started implementing a Smart City framework strategy, incorporating more smart city technologies into new developments. In 2019, the city set the ambitious goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2035. Since April 2022, the city is?a participant?in the European Commission’s ‘100 EU Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities’ initiative.

Challenge: How can Munich as a municipality reconcile its own time targets for climate neutrality with the legal plans and framework conditions of the federal government and implement them in the municipal sub-areas such as mobility, heat supply and buildings?

The background is that Munich as a city has the goal to be climate neutral by 2030 in the administration, 2035 city-wide, the whole state of Bavaria in 2040 and Germany as a country by 2050. However, there are different specifications of what climate neutrality comprises and Munich needs to define its own role and what can actually be implemented at the city level. Plus they need to ensure that the city is not losing its "functionality".

Solutions: The first round brainstormed on governance structures such as adding roles with new powers, emphasised the importance of cost/benefit analyses, and reiterated the need for better and more impactful communication of victories. There were also discussions around affordability and many Use Cases given from around the world by partners. In the second session, Alexander Lang brought up their concepts for financing specific districts in Munich which spurred a lively discussion around a different way to approach this process. A possible solution was to bypass the concept altogether, focusing directly on the impact and instead contracting based on the goal agreed upon.

CONCLUSION

Of course, it is impossible to bring back fully-thought-out solutions to some of the biggest challenges confronting cities and towns from an afternoon workshop. However, the main idea is to stop talking and showcasing what we do, but instead, present challenges and work with people from various backgrounds and perspectives to come up with possible ways of flipping the challenge and finding new solutions. If we presented challenges, mistakes and lessons learned instead of only successes, how far can we progress together on the race towards Net Zero?

*GreenQuays is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Urban Innovative Actions Initiative