Monthly Archives: October 2023

On 3-5 October 2023, A series of insightful sessions on the future of Positive Energy Districts and communities were presented at +CityxChange Final Conference in Trondheim, Norway.

During the event project partners shared implementation experiences and lessons learned from the project around 3 themes of Positive Energy Districts: (1) Enabling a common energy market, (2)Creating connected communities, and (3)Recommendations for new policy interventions, market regulations and business models.

• After months of hard work (based on 5 years of experiences, numerous lessons learned, and of course, many challenges) the +CityxChange final report “How to PED” cookbook was completed. It contains experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations gained throughout the 5 years of the +CityxChange EU Horizon 2020 project, specifically focused on the variety of activities necessary to design and build Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) in smart sustainable cities and communities. Over the course of the book it drawn on the experiences and joint efforts of the 2 Lighthouse Cities, 5 Follower Cities, and 26 other partners, to demonstrate what it takes to build a PED.
• The +CxC project shows the importance of collaboration and co-creation, involving the right people, designing effective pathways for change, deploying strong partnerships and financing, adapting to existing processes or building new ones, developing impactful strategies, building new systems and services, and creating new infrastructure in PED projects.
• The cookbook represents the processes and results of +CityxChange, where all partners and stakeholders contribute with their own recipes & flavours. Just as in real life, recipes often need adjustment to taste. There is no single way to build a PED, so these recipes from our cities provide guidance through the complexities of the journey and share key information that help initiate and smoothen the processes.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the +CityxChange Project. 

You can download the ‘How to PED’ cookbook here

On 10-13 October 2023, Representatives from the 7 cities and 13 organisations that compose the JUSTNature consortium met in person at De Romaanse Poort of Leuven to share experiences and discuss in the 2nd Collaborative CiPeL Workshop, and to review the progress made and the way ahead, especially in light of the review meeting with the Research Executive Agency. As the project transitions into its third year, it now sets its sights on the second phase, which is focused on the implementation of the innovative practices and the dissemination and exploitation of results.

Tannya Pico, Project manager and Methi Laithavewat, Communication manager  at ISOCARP Institute participated in the project meeting in Leuven, Belgium, and presented ongoing communication and dissemination activities, Twinning City activities, and research results on Co-governance indicators and Nature-building communities aiming to establish local coalitions to ensure the ongoing benefits, impact, and maintenance of interventions beyond the project’s duration.

Stay tuned for more updates! And check out the Press Release to discover more about the project.

On 14-15 September 2023, the VARCITIES project partners met at the Town Hall of Leuven in Belgium to review the progress made in the project over the past six months and discuss the implementation of the different visionary solutions developed in VARCITIES’ seven Pilots. This September, the project enters its fourth year!

As the project matures and interventions move from implementation to assessing the impacts of nature-based solutions, it is a moment to discuss and generate ideas for implementing the co-evaluation process.

Highlighted Yoann Clouet, Project manager at ISOCARP Institute, who participated in the project meeting in Leuven, Belgium, presented ongoing communication and dissemination activities and planned to ramp up event participation and dissemination towards specific target audiences. Especially with the ICT components of the project going live soon.

Stay tuned for more updates! And check out the Press Release to discover more about the project.