Leading smart cities publish recommendations
With the completion of the first Smart City project funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020, the Cities of Stockholm, Barcelona and Cologne, and their partners from the GrowSmarter project, have compiled the recommendations from their work into a single concluding publication. The publication ‘From Dream to Reality – Recommendations for Policymakers and Practitioners’ provides detailed advice on how to implement Smart City solutions for policymakers on the European, national and local level as well as for practitioners in both the private and public sector. On the importance of sharing the recommendations and advice from GrowSmarter, Project Coordinator Gustaf Landahl says: “The GrowSmarter project has now successfully come to an end after enormous efforts by all 42 partners. The smart solutions, however, continue to reduce emissions of carbon and continue to be replicated in other cities thus accelerating the strive towards a fossil fuel free future.” Among the many recommendations from the project is early citizen engagement, new legislation to encourage energy efficient retrofitting of buildings, fossil fuel free mobility and to invest in more demonstration projects proving which smart solutions are most sustainable when implemented. Specific advice is also offered on how climate, legislation and needs on the citizens should influence how the smart solutions are deployed. Ada Colau Ballano, Mayor of Barcelona, says about the smart city work in GrowSmarter: “Under the GrowSmarter project, we in Barcelona, working together with Stockholm and Cologne, have shown that the fight against climate change depends on collaboration between citizens, companies, the academic world and public authorities. By working together we can make cities healthier, nicer and more sustainable." Henriette Reker, Mayor of Cologne, says about the city’s participation in GrowSmarter: “The GrowSmarter project is part of the SmartCity Cologne strategy. For Cologne, the GrowSmarter project was one of the first important and largely visible success stories within the SmartCity Cologne strategy. As the first German lighthouse city, we received national and international attention.” Katarina Luhr, Vice Mayor of Stockholm for Environment and Climate, says: “The GrowSmarter project has helped Stockholm become a smarter city and has shown new ways to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is my hope that these solutions are spread and taken up by more cities as the need for emissions reductions is urgent.” The solutions that have been implemented in Stockholm, Cologne and Barcelona are already being replicated in the cities of Cork, Suceava, Graz, Valletta and Porto which were a part of GrowSmarter as ‘Follower Cities’, and shared with other European cities through the city network ICLEI and the EU Smart Cities and Communities Partnership. You can find the full publication of recommendations on www.Grow-Smarter.eu/recommendations
Keywords
SmartCity, SmartCities, energyefficiency, mobility, energy, data, bigdata, urbandata