On 21 March 2024, 77 cities from Europe and beyond gathered online for the first Implementation Lab of the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC). This day-long event focused on discussing the progress made by cities on their Local Green Deals (LGDs).
Welcome to the new ICC cities!
Dana Eleftheriadou, Head of Cities and Proximity Team, DG GROW, European Commission, welcomed the participants and provided insights on the current policy context and growing role of cities in this EU elections’ year.
This introduction session was also dedicated to welcome the 13 new cities:
Arteixo (Spain)
Larnaca (Cyprus)
Pesaro (Italy)
Saint-Germain (France)
San Benedetto del Tronto (Italy)
Trento (Italy)
Istanbul (Turkey)
Lviv (Ukraine)
Novovolynsk (Ukraine)
Pristina (Kosovo)
Rivne (Ukraine)
Skopje (North Macedonia)
Vinnytsia (Ukraine)
The ICC Communications Ambassadors were also introduced, these 9 cities will use their strong communications skills, to bolster and push forward the initiative's communication and make a powerful impact. The selected Ambassadors are:
Alcoy (Spain)
Pori (Finland)
Busto Arsizio (Italy)
North-West Ireland City Region (Ireland)
Las Rozas de Madrid (Spain)
Poznań (Poland)
Trikala (Greece)
Sweden Emilia Romagna Network (Sweden-Italy)
Sant Cugat del Vallès (Spain)
Local Green Deals in the spotlight
The Implementation Lab followed up on the focus on Local Green Deals during the last Strategy Lab in November 2023. During this next session, participating cities received information on the next steps in their LGDs training. This next step was a deep dive in funding, the Lab showcased a clear structure for cities to follow when they decide where to find their funding and gave inspiring examples of other cities’ projects.
Assessing the legal and fiscal frameworks
The importance of ICC cities having an exhaustive overview of the available opportunities to support their LGDs journey was emphasised. From the legal to the fiscal standpoints, cities were shown that while it is essential to start with their cities’ resources, focusing on a hybrid format will bring stronger results.
The concrete examples of Mannheim (Germany), Milan (Italy), Amsterdam Region (The Netherlands), and Umeå (Sweden) were shared to show how the different funding mechanisms can be used to maximise the benefits. Additionally, cities were provided with tools they can use to support their plan, including the Finance guidance from the Net Zero Cities platform and the Financial instruments library from the City Climate Finance Leadership Alliance.
Making the Deal
Whilst the thought process behind an LGD is important signing the Deal and nurturing the partnerships are the crucial components of LGDs. Part of this covers the communication around the progress and results achieved. Communication is therefore a core element for cities as it helps them to become more accountable in their action, provides transparency and encourage participation.
In addition, communication can serve specific purposes, for instance Espoo (Finland) focused their communication on the recruitment of new partners. Meanwhile, Aalborg (Denmark) and Amsterdam Region (The Netherlands) chose to use communication to celebrate the milestones of their LGDs journey.
Deep Dive: funding opportunities for Local Green Deals
To better support ICC cities, a strong focus was made on the different funding opportunities available. During this deep dive, the correlation between each funding opportunity and the different aspects of the LGDs was highlighted. For instance, investments on education or to support a climate plan are often not coming from the same source. It is then important for cities to map the different funding opportunities and identify the most appropriate one for each part of their LGDs.
LGDs working groups
The second part of the day was dedicated to hands-on working sessions to discuss the progress made by cities on their LGDs journey. Presentations from some of the Core ICC Cities shared examples, experiences and explanations about their LGD journeys. These sessions gave the opportunity to ICC cities to ask for support from the Mentor Cities and Lead Experts.
Some key takeaways from these sessions include: the key role of municipalities in facilitating partnerships, the difficulties to retain stakeholders’ interest in the long run, but also the importance of bringing politicians on as early as possible and to work with them.
The ICC Coordination Team thanks all participants and speakers for contributing to the success of the event and looks forward to seeing the outcomes of these discussions.
Next steps
Following on from the Lab, an online networking session for all ICC core and mentor cities will take place on 24 April 2024 to connect the diverse city network, more information will be shared shortly. In the meantime, cities are encouraged to register for the upcoming Intelligent Cities Challenge Conference on Local Green Deals which will take place in Porto, Portugal on 18-19 June 2024. Registration is now open here.