The online Capacity Building on Regenerative Design by ACCIONA, organised by the IURC Central Coordination Services in coordination with the Geographical Areas in two sessions (morning for Asia & Australasia and China; afternoon for Latin America and North America) aimed to support our worldwide pairings and clusters to path the way of their ongoing projects during the last year of the programme. The training was conducted on March 7^th 2023 and welcomed more than 75 participants from all around the globe.

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During the first part of the session, Sustainable and Urban experts shared some valuable insights for regenerative design, establishing linkages with the European Commission’s new framework and initiatives as the “New European Bauhaus” (to make tangible the Green Deal). Afterwards, some of the IURC’s parings shared their joint projects with a focus on their financial challenges (NCI-Bologna / Yangzhou; Rotterdam / Surat; Sofia / Sejong; Essen / Fortaleza; Aurora / Bergamo / Rimini; and Silesia / Parana) and received some tips for project financing from an operational perspective.

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A final interactive session, through ACCIONA’s RESILIENCE tool, showed how the decision-making process can be accelerated considering common challenges and lessons learned from previous experiences, establishing interesting links between the most common issues as multilevel governance, the importance of the context, innovative technologies or public-private models.

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Download the training material here

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Watch the recordings here

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ACCIONA is an international reference as a designer of regenerative infrastructures shifting to a more long-term of imagining, nurturing and stewarding places creating multi-dimensional benefits for all (social, environmental and economic). The company has been carbon-neutral since 2016 and integrates its culture of sustainability, and now of regenerative design, across all its projects and solutions as accelerators contributing to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

This first online session of our Renovation Wave series will feature Dan Dicaire, Manager of Energy and Sustainability, and Melissa Jort-Conway, Planner II in Climate Change and Resiliency, both from the City of Ottawa. They will share their role in the Race to Zero to eliminate Ottawa’s GHG emissions by 2040, including the retrofit strategy for OCH’s 15,000 units and several projects which hold the blueprints to eliminating GHG emissions from their entire portfolio. We will talk about financing, long-term planning, and community partnerships, which are crucial for deploying and implementing these concepts. We will also hear from Paloma Bozman, Director of the Zaragoza (Spain) social housing department, who will add a European perspective to this kind of policies by sharing their experience promoting retrofit projects – both in the private and public sectors – as part of their local strategy towards Zero Emissions in 2030. A discussion with other IURC cities will follow the presentations so they can share their experiences and challenges in this field.

Download:

Presentation Retrofitting social houses and buildings – Ottawa – Melissa Jort Conway

Presentation Retrofitting social houses and buildings – Ottawa – Dan Dicaire

Presentation Retrofitting social houses and buildings – Zaragoza

Cities Forum 2023: 16-17 March in Torino, Italy

The 5th edition of Cities Forum will be held in Torino, Italy from 16 to 17 March 2023. The event brings together key urban stakeholders at European, national, regional and local levels who are committed to a green and just future of cities.

IURC will have a parallel session on the 17 March from 16.00-17:30 ‘Coming out of the European Box: international cooperation to inspire Sustainable Urban Transformation’ – don’t miss it!

The Cities Forum is a biennial event of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy. For this edition, our host is Torino, a city with a vast history in urban transformation due to its transition from factory town to a city of knowledge, culture and innovation.

The Cities Forum 2023 will offer high-level debates, participatory sessions and interactive workshops on cohesion and recovery in cities. It will provide participants with a unique opportunity to network and discuss the recent developments of various EU initiatives and policies as well as to explore our host city through several site visits. Make sure to review the programme section for a detailed description of each session.

Together for green and just cities

Even though implementing EU Cohesion Policy for the 2021-2027 period is still in the early stages, Europe’s cities find themselves in unprecedented times. New challenges arise along with the green and digital transition. Several crises from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine and food and energy insecurity are changing the way citizens live.

In these demanding times, support, dialogue, and cooperation are more important than ever to continue our sustainable urban development efforts so no place is left behind.

Cities Forum 2023 is the place and moment to discuss the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy for 2021-2027, namely how our main investment policy can help cities advance by financing sustainable urban development. A key moment of the event will be the presentation of new EU level initiatives created to support cities. The 5th edition of the Cities Forum will host the official launch of the European Urban Initiative (EUI) and its first EU level capacity building event.

The forum will put a spotlight on the recent developments under the key policies and initiatives which engage cities such: as the Urban Agenda for the EU, the EU Mission for 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities and explore how the New European Bauhaus can be used to make a difference in local development. As place-based approaches are at the core of Cohesion Policy, we aim to underline the role of small- and medium-sized cities and functional territories in developing tailor-made solutions for local challenges.

Following the theme of this year’s edition, the event will focus on the role of cities in implementing the European Green Deal and the importance of strategic approaches to address the needs for climate adaptation and environmental protection.

The 5th edition of the Cities Forum will provide an opportunity to strengthen the core EU objective of social inclusion by bringing forward measures for welcoming people with a migrant background and for their inclusion at a local level, including but not limited to the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In our efforts to achieve the objective of leaving no one behind, the exchange on effective practices for the socio-economic inclusion of marginalised groups at the local level and preventing and combatting segregation will continue during the forum.

Join in Torino on 16-17 March 2023 to discover what’s next in sustainable urban development.

In this interactive workshop, Circular Economy Expert Erin Kennedy from Metabolic – a Netherlands-based organization who has over a decade of experience advising businesses, governments, and nonprofits around the world on how to thrive in a circular economy – will offer practical advice and strategies to help cities develop and implement their circular economy plans.