Blogs and articles

Green and blue infrastructure empowers local governments to design the high-quality integrated urban systems of tomorrow

In the fight against climate change, combining Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) planning strategies with urban systems integration is a promising strategy for reducing carbon emissions and waste production whilst strengthening cities’ ecosystem services. The IFWEN project fills an important knowledge gap by demonstrating which types of GBI and ecoservice are connected, as well as showing policy makers how GBI can be used as an instrument for transformative change.

Project results from ENLARGE pave the way for sustainable urban heating, tailored to neighbourhood needs without compromising energy resilience or social justice

Combining data and modelling with an ethnographic approach, the ENLARGE project demonstrates why a nexus approach to urban heating (integrating energy and water systems) can decrease reliance on oil and gas, increase energy security, and mitigate risks such as water stress and social conflict. Project outputs include an optimisation model that determines which heat technologies produce the lowest carbon emissions and provides relevant data for decision-making at the neighbourhood scale and determining city level emissions.

A different governance of joint resources? Results from the Creating Interfaces urban living labs

What are the benefits of targeting food in the food-water-energy nexus? Is is time to govern these resources differently in cities? The Creating Interfaces project has carried out international research on how food, energy and water systems interact (as a nexus) in three cities: Slupsk (Poland) Tulcea (Romania) and Wilmington (U.S.A). We met with Pia Laborgne and Iulian Nichersu to learn from their popular results.

Results from M-NEX help policy makers redesign urban environments to lower CO2 emissions

Many cities need to drastically lower their CO2 emissions whilst meeting an ever-growing demand for carbon intensive resources. The M-NEX (Movable Nexus) project argues that by focusing on their food, water, and energy systems (FEW), cities can create circular economies and simultaneously reduce their carbon emissions. We interviewed Professor Wanglin Yan, the project coordinator for M-NEX, about the methodology and tools they developed.  

Vertical Greening is a low-cost source of food, energy, and building cooling

The Vertical Green 2.0 project has developed tools to predict the cooling potentials of vertical greenings and their water demands to better understand and manage vertical greening as a viable source of food and energy. “What makes vertical greening so interesting is that it can contribute to numerous urban transitions”, says one of the project coordinators Karin Hoffmann. The project results help answer one of the big questions on this topic, namely why vertical greening has not been applied on a large scale before despite its promising nature.

Engage, apply, transform: the Syncity toolbox is now available

How to make urban transformation truly engaging, just and sustainability-oriented? The toolbox produced in the frame of the project Syncity – Synergetic Cities for Europe- offers many innovative concepts and practical hands-on ideas. Based on lessons learnt from the city quarter of Cureghem in Brussels, it is especially valuable for arrival areas and disadvantaged neighbourhoods in European cities and beyond. The vision: cities in balance with natural resources, where residents, no matter their socio-economic or cultural background, can live, work and learn in synergy with the place, growing and renewing it together.

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