Green Deal Projects Support Office

Successfully engaging communities can be a significantly challenging activity. Sustainable urban energy is not just about the performance of buildings but also making room for social activities at the community level, and cooperating with different stakeholders, users, and developers.

In this update from the ARV project, the key learnings have been distilled from a joint event delivered at #EURegionsWeek 2023 by ARV, oPEN Lab and other EU-funded projects.

oPEN Lab has produced a policy brief and a policy paper on sustainable urban development through Positive Energy Neighbourhoods (PENs).

These publications delve into climate-neutral communities and offer insights into cost-effective decarbonisation of EU buildings.

Living labs are real-world environments where research and experimentation take place in an open and collaborative manner. They help to ensure that the solutions developed are practical, user-friendly, and address real-world needs.

oPEN Labs has shared a Capacity-Building Handbook as a practical guide to setting up living labs in the context of PENs, which may be of interest to other research projects.

In September, the first cohort of 40 cities were selected to join the NetZeroCities Twinning Learning Programme. They embarked on an important journey of shared learning, best practices, and much more in order to to replicate new approaches to climate neutrality.

The next Call for Twin Cities is due to open in early spring 2024.

In the PROBONO project, mobility at the scale of Living Labs is envisioned as an enabler of GBNs. So, how can mobility be efficiently integrated within a GBN?

In this latest article from PROBONO the project explains how vehicle electrification and smart charging approaches can contribute to the development of sustainable neighbourhoods.

Take a look at the first group of success stories from the Green Deal-funded projects now available on the website. These showcase the diverse achievements of the projects as they overcame challenges to embrace innovation, and achieve significant milestones.

Visit the pages to discover inspiring narratives, useful insights and learn from their experiences.

Take a look at our latest articles and report which highlight the progress and contributions from the Green Deal-funded projects, covering clean energy, food waste and sustainable mobility.

If you missed the webinars featuring our projects you can now catch up on the recordings on our website. Watch the videos to learn more from EU-funded projects based on their research:

• Community and bottom-up transitions in energy and climate change adaption
• Demonstrating the circular economy in Europe’s regions
• Clearing the air: research findings on new additions to the EU Air Quality Directive proposal

Follow the link to each webinar below.

ARSINOE has announced the launch of its second Open Tenders for Innovations.

They are looking for innovative solutions that can help European regions enhance their resilience to extreme heat, water scarcity, drought, water pollution, and floods. If your innovation can mitigate the impacts of these climate challenges on social, economic, and environmental systems, they want to hear from you!

30 January, 10:00 - 12:00 CET, Zoom
We invite you to join us online to hear about the latest innovations and outputs from the Horizon 2020 Green Deal Call-funded projects and the thematic working groups.

At this webinar you can pose your questions directly to the projects to find out more about their work, discuss with like-minded peers and explore collaborative opportunities to foster meaningful connections.