Transformative innovation in peri-urban Asia

This paper draws on two case studies from India and China to discuss how and why rapidly urbanizing contexts are particularly challenging for transformative innovation but are also critical sustainability frontiers and learning environments. We argue that lack of understanding and policy engagement with peri-urbanization in its current form is leading to increasing exclusion and unrealized potential to support multiple sustainable urban development goals. Peri-urbanization is often characterized by the neoliberal reordering of space and a co-option of environmental agendas by powerful urban elites. Changing land-use, resource extraction, pollution and livelihood transitions drive rapid changes in interactions between socio-technical and social-ecological systems, and produce complex feedbacks across the rural–urban continuum. These contexts also present characteristic governance challenges as a result of jurisdictional ambiguity, transitioning formal and informal institutional arrangements, heterogeneous and sometimes transient communities, shifts in decision making to distant authorities and the rapid growth of informal market-based arrangements with little incentive for environmental management. These unique features of peri-urbanization may reinforce a lack of inclusion and hinder experimentation, but they can also present valuable opportunities for transformative innovation. This innovation is unlikely to follow the lines of niche management and upscaling but rather should take advantage of peri-urban dynamics. There are possibilities to build new alliances in order to renegotiate governance structures across the rural–urban continuum, to reframe urban sustainability debates and to reconfigure socio-technical and social-ecological systems interactions

Introducing the Portuguese sustainability assessment tool for urban areas: SBTool PT – Urban Planning

ISBN 978-99957-0-935-8Given the accelerated urbanization process throughout the twentieth century, many of todayâ s cities reflect a fast and disordered growth, which influences directly the demand for natural resources. For an indispensable change in the current urban infrastructure management models, it is necessary to quantify the sustainability level of actual practices and proposals. In this context, based on widespread methods, SBTool_PT Urban Planning represents an adaptation of the SBTool international method to the Portuguese context. This tool assesses the sustainability level of the practices promoted in urban projects with no size restrictions and is applicable to new urban development and/or urban renovation. The process is conducted by a rigorous analysis of requisites specifically developed to stimulate improvements on energy consumption, management of potable water, solid waste, urban soil and territory and air quality. Aiming at a full introduction of the tool, this article contextualizes its development and characterizes its assessment methodology. Additional application to a case study shows how the assessment of a proposed project is performed. It is intended to demonstrate in which way sustainability assessment methodologies allow the promotion of innovation and urban sustainability through the environmental preservation and the improvement of the quality of life in urban areas

Towards an\u2028 EU research and innovation policy agenda for nature-based solutions & re-naturing cities. Final report of the Horizon 2020 expert group on nature-based solutions and re-naturing cities.

1. Nature-based solutions harness the power and sophistication of nature to turn environmental, social and economic challenges into innovation opportunities. They can address a variety of societal challenges in sustainable ways, with the potential to contribute to green growth, 'future-proofing' society, fostering citizen well-being, providing business opportunities and positioning Europe as a leader in world markets. \u2028 2. Nature-based solutions are actions which are inspired by, supported by or copied from nature. They have tremendous potential to be energy and resource-efficient and resilient to change, but to be successful they must be adapted to local conditions. \u2028 3. Many nature-based solutions result in multiple co-benefits for health, the economy, society and the environment, and thus they can represent more efficient and cost-effective solutions than more traditional approaches. \u2028 4. An EU Research & Innovation (R&I) agenda on nature-based solutions will enable Europe to become a world leader both in R&I and in the growing market for nature-based solutions. For this, the evidence base for the effectiveness of nature-based solutions needs to be developed and then used to implement solutions. Both need to be done in conjunction with stakeholders. The potential for transferability and upscaling of solutions also requires further investigation. There is also a need to develop a systemic approach that combines technical, business, finance, governance, regulatory and social innovation. \u2028 5. Four principal goals have been identified that can be addressed by nature-based solutions: �� Enhancing sustainable urbanisation through nature-based solutions can stimulate economic growth as well as improving the environment, making cities more attractive, and enhancing human well-being. \u2028 �� Restoring degraded ecosystems using nature-based solutions can improve the resilience of ecosystems, enabling them to deliver vital ecosystem services and also to meet other societal challenges. \u2028 �� Developing climate change adaptation and mitigation using nature-based solutions can provide more resilient responses and enhance the storage of carbon. \u2028 �� Improving risk management and resilience using nature-based solutions can lead to greater benefits than conventional methods and offer synergies in reducing multiple risks. \u2028 6. Based on the four goals, seven nature-based solutions for R&I actions are recommended to be taken forward by the European Commission and Member States: �� Urban regeneration through nature-based solutions \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for improving well-being in urban areas \u2028 �� Establishing nature-based solutions for coastal resilience \u2028 �� Multi-functional nature-based watershed management and ecosystem restoration \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for increasing the sustainability of the use of matter and energy \u2028 �� Nature-based solutions for enhancing the insurance value of ecosystems \u2028 �� Increasing carbon sequestration through nature-based solutions \u2028This report was produced by the Horizon 2020 Expert Group on 'Nature-Based Solutions and Re- Naturing Cities', informed by the findings of an e-consultation and a stakeholder workshop. \u202

Frameworks for urban water sustainability

Integrated water management, sustainable water management, water sensitive cities, and other formulations are often presented as the latest in a series of paradigms of water management. This implies a unified approach, while urban water debates reflect a wide diversity of political, social, and technical viewpoints. Five distinct but overlapping frameworks for urban water sustainability are evident in research, policy and practice, reflecting wider environmental theory, politics, and discourse. Sustainable development is based on meeting the needs for water and sanitation of the urban poor. Ecological modernization focuses on policies to improve water efficiency and treatment through technological innovation and individual behavior change. Socio‐technical framings aim to understand how change in water systems occurs across physical and institutional scales and addresses the co‐evolution of infrastructures, cultures, and everyday practices. Urban political ecology analyses water infrastructure in terms of relationships of power, pointing to the unequal distribution of costs and benefits of urban water management for the environment and citizens. Radical ecology addresses the relationship between human culture and non‐human nature, proposing fundamental reorganization of society to solve ecological and hydrological crises. Characterizing alternate frameworks of urban water sustainability provides clarity on the underlying assumptions, methods, and politics across a diversity of approaches. Frameworks may be deployed strategically to deliver policy impact, or may reflect deeply held political or epistemological standpoints. Understanding different conceptions of urban water sustainability provides the basis for more constructive dialogue and debate about water and its role in sustainable cites. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Planning Water Human Water > Water Governance Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awarenes

Copernicus for urban resilience in Europe

The urban community faces a significant obstacle in effectively utilising Earth Observation (EO) intelligence, particularly the Copernicus EO program of the European Union, to address the multifaceted aspects of urban sustainability and bolster urban resilience in the face of climate change challenges. In this context, here we present the efforts of the CURE project, which received funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme, to leverage the Copernicus Core Services (CCS) in supporting urban resilience. CURE provides spatially disaggregated environmental intelligence at a local scale, demonstrating that CCS can facilitate urban planning and management strategies to improve the resilience of cities. With a strong emphasis on stakeholder engagement, CURE has identified eleven cross-cutting applications between CCS that correspond to the major dimensions of urban sustainability and align with user needs. These applications have been integrated into a cloud-based platform known as DIAS (Data and Information Access Services), which is capable of delivering reliable, usable and relevant intelligence to support the development of downstream services towards enhancing resilience planning of cities throughout Europe

Public entities driven robotic innovation in urban areas

Cities present new challenges and needs to satisfy and improve lifestyle for their citizens under the concept “Smart City”. In order to achieve this goal in a global manner, new technologies are required as the robotic one. But Public entities unknown the possibilities offered by this technology to get solutions to their needs. In this paper the development of the Innovative Public Procurement instruments is explained, specifically the process PDTI (Public end Users Driven Technological Innovation) as a driving force of robotic research and development and offering a list of robotic urban challenges proposed by European cities that have participated in such a process. In the next phases of the procedure, this fact will provide novel robotic solutions addressed to public demand that are an example to be followed by other Smart Cities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Experiments in climate governance – lessons from a systematic review of case studies in transition research

Experimentation has been proposed as one of the ways in which public policy can drive sustainability transitions, notably by creating or delimiting space for experimenting with innovative solutions to sustainability challenges. In this paper we report on a systematic review of articles published between 2009 and 2015 that have addressed experiments aiming either at understanding decarbonisation transitions or enhancing climate resilience. Using the case survey method, we find few empirical descriptions of real-world experiments in climate and energy contexts in the scholarly literature, being observed in only 25 articles containing 29 experiments. We discuss the objectives, outputs and outcomes of these experiments noting that explicit experimenting with climate policies could be identified only in 12 cases. Based on the results we suggest a definition of climate policy experiments and a typology of experiments for sustainability transitions that can be used to better understand the role of and learn more effectively from experiments in sustainability transitions

The 2007-13 operational programmes: a preliminary assessment: Spring – Autumn 2005

A preliminary assessment of the 2007-13 operational programmes on EU cohesion policy

Product Service System Innovation in the Smart City

Product service systems (PSS) may usefully form part of the mix of innovations necessary to move society toward more sustainable futures. However, despite such potential, PSS implementation is highly uneven and limited. Drawing on an alternate socio-technical perspective of innovation, this paper provides fresh insights, on among other things the role of context in PSS innovation, to address this issue. Case study research is presented focusing on a use orientated PSS in an urban environment: the Copenhagen city bike scheme. The paper shows that PSS innovation is a situated complex process, shaped by actors and knowledge from other locales. It argues that further research is needed to investigate how actors interests shape PSS innovation. It recommends that institutional spaces should be provided in governance landscapes associated with urban environments to enable legitimate PSS concepts to co-evolve in light of locally articulated sustainability principles and priorities

Co-production for innovation: the urban living lab experience

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are public spaces where local authorities engage citizens to develop innovative urban services. Their strength and popularity stem from a methodology based on open innovation, experimentation, and citizen engagement. Although the ULL methodology is supposed to largely adopt a co-production approach, connections between the two have not yet been thoroughly investigated. The paper seeks to fill this gap by examining through a qualitative analysis three experiences of ULLs made in Amsterdam, Boston and Turin. Specifically, the paper aims to assess whether ULLs can be really conceptualised as a form of co-production and, if so, which elements characterised them as innovative in comparison to \u2018mainstreaming\u2019 co-production; Then it analyses benefits and drawbacks related to their implementation