Welcome to the ECOCITY 2022 Interactive Programme

Abstract Body

Cities are innovating with purpose to achieve intersecting social and ecological objectives. Innovation is a driver of socio-technical systems change through application of new ideas, knowledge, products, processes, and policies. Purposeful innovation in the context of city climate change imperatives and Green Recovery agendas post-COVID-19 offers a renewed orientation to directing and evaluating change relative to socio-ecological values rather than (purely) economistic measures and a narrow focus on technological uptake. We consider how cities talk about innovation as a strategic climate goal and how research and innovation is institutionalised through climate action planning to date while reflecting on forms of city research and innovation undertaken in response to COVID-19. The research is based on a random sample of 98 city climate action strategies published since 2016 by cities committed to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), as well as public reporting on city responses to COVID-19 in the first half of 2020. This paper stems from a participatory action research project based at the Connected Cities Lab at the University of Melbourne in collaboration with Ironbark Sustainability for GCoM’s Innovate4Cities Initiative. Innovate4Cities was launched in 2018 following the Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Edmonton, Canada, and aims to elevate city decision-maker perspectives to define a city research and innovation agenda, contextualized at a regional scale. We map the common and differentiated strategic climate research and innovation activities of cities by region to establish the scope of interventions, priority sectors, and shifting needs for climate action in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. By evidencing cities’ pursuit of purposeful innovation to address climate change and intersecting social challenges, the paper affirms the value of the urban scale in instituting alternative modes of governance and offers a preliminary framework of local needs and priorities to guide multilevel climate governance coordination and investment. The findings raise questions around the extent to which the implementation of purposeful innovations facilitates urban transformations that break with business as usual environmental degradation, resource extraction, and wealth inequality.

Abstract Body

Lahti is the European Green Capital in 2021. The award is a tribute to Lahti’s long history of environmental action and to the transformation from a traditional industrial town into a modern green city that aims to be carbon neutral by 2025. Lahti now has an excellent opportunity to showcase the best Finnish and European environmental solutions and green innovation. Ensuring the continuity and the value of the projects and actions established during the theme year is of utmost importance.

Lahti answers this challenge by working closely with local universities, businesses, and the community while involving everyone right from the start. The Green Capital year is managed by a temporary and independent team of 10 people, working remotely from our own homes. How do we do this?

The organization outlined four thematic large-scale projects for the Green Capital year that hold a significant effect in the local area - projects all of which are guaranteed to have true ownership and continuity from 2022 onwards. These include the establishment of The Development Centre for Low-carbon Construction to reduce the city’s carbon footprint of construction, a concept to facilitate dialogue between the youth and the city officials to co-produce local policies, an electronic mobility cluster to advance smart mobility in the city, and the development of a multidisciplinary research plan that studies the health benefits of nature to public health.

We see real benefits of managing a massive thematic year with a small organization that works together with the city officials while also retaining its independent status. We can be bold when contacting stakeholders and planning future actions. We also dare to experiment with new agile ways. Most of the Green Capital projects have successfully started of necessity and completely from scratch.

Lahti Green Capital year has only just begun. In the Ecocity World Summit 2021, we would demonstrate our creative solutions in managing the European Green Capital year, explore what we have learned from the project so far and discuss our strategies with fellow cities and organizations.

Abstract Body

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes have been around since the 1990s as a policy to help relief the increasing demand of garbage disposal. Waste is now far more problematic than just an ever-expanding by-product of urbanization; it is becoming a global crisis that requires for reimagination and transformation of our consumption patterns. Viewed by many emerging countries in Asia as a customizable cure-all to solve the growing plastic pollution problem, EPR schemes are rapidly developed by numerous nations that are evolving from being developing countries to middle-income ones almost equally as rapidly. If unresolved, the plastic pollution problem would result in the aggravation of several environmental and socioeconomic crises, including the marine litter disaster and oversaturation of urban waste disposal channels. Aside from the fact that "polluter pays" concept continue to play central roles in in other successful pollutant-based policies, EPR schemes are also widely accepted by the producers themselves, all of whom cognizant of the plastic pollution crisis, but many of whom unwilling or unable to reinvent their plastic value chains to replace their plastic contents.

Lessons have been learned in the West, especially in Northern and Central Europe, as EPR schemes have been repeatedly implemented and revised. The oldest EPR scheme in Germany is still being revised till recently since its launch in the mid-1990s - will its counterparts in Asia also require this much time to be finetuned and effective towards boosting recycling rates and reducing plastic pollution? This paper analyzes the promises and pitfalls of EPR schemes and how Asia's own upcoming schemes in India, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Hong Kong can leverage EPR schemes to find solutions to the plastic pollution that is choking up cross-boundary bodies of water.

Abstract Body

In recent years the scientific community has proposed methods for assessing sustainability and, among these, the European Green city Index and UN (2017) Sustainable City Indexing are leading the way. Other indices have been put forth by the European Commission, that is proposing a complete framework for assessing urban sustainability.

Although complete, the above-mentioned methods do not fully address the aspect of circularity and of circular economy in cities, as they mainly focus on sustainability from a broader perspective.

In this work we propose a method to assess urban circularity from a perspective that covers both aspects directly related to circularity of urban flows (like waste, energy, water) and enabling factors capable of indirectly fostering or boosting circularity (like policies and the role of citizens).

The proposed method is based on a survey covering:

1. Urban metabolic flows, such as: energy, materials, water, waste.

2. Infrastructures and digitalisation: quality of service, open data, sustainable and public mobility, smart energy services.

3. Policies and the role of the public administration in fostering the principles of circular economy at territorial level

4. Environment and quality of life, including pollution and GHG emissions.

The "Circular Reporting Score", a method based on urban metabolism and covering policy aspects has been developed, and two Italian municipalities have been involved in the study and investigated by means of a specific survey derived from previous studies on urban sustainability.

Results show that the proposed method is able to capture aspects related to the circularity of flows while providing citizens and policy makers with suitable tools for taking informed decisions to reduce the environmental impact of cities.

Finally, we go beyond the concept of circularity based on the strict balancing of material flows and we move in the direction of a wider concept interweaving the need to reduce the waste flows of cities with the need to analyse the city as a complex system composed of different interconnected domains.