{"id":34739,"date":"2025-04-03T18:13:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=34739"},"modified":"2025-04-03T18:14:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:14:58","slug":"urban-environment-and-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/04\/03\/urban-environment-and-mobility\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban environment and mobility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/euagenda.eu\/publications\/download\/622776\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">A message<\/span><\/a> presents an overview of the activities of the Urban Environment and Mobility Working Group (Urban Environment and Mobility WG) of the Green Deal Projects Support Office<!--more--> \u2013 GDSO) for the period from December 2022 to July 2024. The report was finalised in January 2025. The GDSO was established to facilitate coordination between projects funded under the Horizon 2020 Green Deal Call (GDC) and maximise their long-term positive impact. The Office will operate until November 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Introduction and overview of the working group:<\/strong> The GDSO supports networking, knowledge exchange and joint capacity building activities through five thematic working groups, including the Working Group on Urban Environment and Mobility. Each working group is led by facilitators from the GDSO, who are responsible for organising meetings, monitoring the progress of projects and their cooperation plans. The Working Group on Urban Environment and Mobility brings together nine projects focused on green transition at urban and local level. Most of these projects focus on an inclusive and bottom-up approach and are funded under four different themes of the Horizon 2020 Green Deal: emission reduction, decarbonisation, clean energy production and management, and resource efficiency in manufacturing and services. The projects address multimodal connections and transport hubs (ports and airports), buildings and neighbourhoods, as well as cities, with a specific focus on green airports and ports (Mobility segment) and sustainable urban areas, in particular construction and renovation (Urban Environment segment). Most of the projects are Innovation Actions (IA), with the exception of one, which is a Research and Innovation Action (RIA). The report provides an overview of these projects, including their titles, start and end dates.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Main activities and achievements:<\/strong> At the beginning, each working group developed an action plan that set out objectives and tasks. The action plan of the working group on urban environment and mobility was presented in November 2022 and finalized in January 2023. It contained several main areas of focus:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Policy:<\/strong> Exploring the common implications of the Fit for 55 proposal, coordinating policy influencing efforts through a communication platform, identifying areas of common interest, stakeholders and target policymakers, as well as identifying relevant standards in the field of construction and renovation. Despite initial efforts, it was not possible to identify common areas of policy interest and formulate a common response to the Fit for 55 proposals. The NetZeroCities (NZC) project will support mission cities in formulating relevant EU climate policies. The PROBONO project coordinated a workshop on energy communities policy and expressed interest in leading an activity to create a policy action exploring the concept of innovation clusters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Thematic cooperation:<\/strong> Collection and exchange of information on the technical content of projects and mapping of thematic overlaps. Although information was shared, this did not lead to subsequent joint activities.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Operational issues:<\/strong> Sharing best practices in managing large consortia. This area was postponed due to lack of interest from projects.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Business models and financing options:<\/strong> Sharing best practices on business models and raising additional funding. Activities in this area have also been postponed until projects advance in their timelines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A significant development was <strong>including air quality in the project focus<\/strong>. A webinar on air quality was held in December 2023, led by the RI-URBANS and STARGATE projects. The RI-URBANS project, which focuses on air quality, was previously part of the Knowledge and Citizens Working Group.<\/p>\n<p>Despite existing collaboration between projects within the same GDC themes, there is an example <strong>cross-sectoral cooperation between the RI-URBANS and STARGATE projects<\/strong> in the field of providing data on ultrafine particles. Projects funded under the same theme have been grouped into &quot;clusters&quot; and communicate closely without the need for GDSO intervention.<\/p>\n<p>The policy framework held a workshop in January 2023 to provide information on the Commission&#039;s policy priorities and the possibilities for GDSO projects to contribute to their implementation. An online platform for communication on policy issues was created but was not used.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.3 Project in the spotlight:<\/strong> The report highlights projects <strong>STAR GATE<\/strong> (aimed at transforming green airports into multimodal hubs for sustainable and smart mobility) and <strong>PIONEERS<\/strong> (aimed at strengthening ports as key hubs for sustainable shipping with the aim of achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions operations). The PIONEERS project was included in the GDSO publications on success stories.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Reflective Views:<\/strong> Initial participation in WG meetings was strong but declined in 2024, particularly from projects in the Mobility cluster. Many projects are moving into the implementation phase, which limits the provision of information on challenges and lessons learned. Projects have shown a preference to assess overlaps on a case-by-case basis and decisions on business models and funding have been postponed. The inclusion of air quality represents an opportunity for broader collaboration.<\/p>\n<p>Between <strong>calls for cooperation<\/strong> include inconsistent attendance at meetings, partly due to the overload of projects with offers from different initiatives and networks. The rotation of project representatives also leads to different technical expertise and knowledge of the state of the projects. Another challenge is the existence of two distinct focus areas (urban environment and mobility) with limited overlap, which means that part of the meetings is irrelevant for half of the participants. GDSO suggests dividing future WG meetings into two parallel sections. A third problem is the lack of willingness of projects to take the lead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Next steps:<\/strong> The short-term goal of the WG is to increase engagement and revise the action plan to reflect the interests of the working group. The long-term goal is to shift ownership of tasks to projects. The discussion on business models has been postponed to autumn 2024 and the discussion on funding to 2025. The facilitators will work with the PROBONO project to develop a template for a policy document. The sixth meeting of the WG is planned for November 2024.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. Bibliography:<\/strong> The report includes a list of websites of the mentioned projects.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the report highlights efforts to promote cooperation between projects focusing on sustainable urban mobility and the urban environment under the Green Deal initiative. While some degree of cooperation has been achieved, particularly within thematic related projects, integrating the different areas and maintaining the commitment of all stakeholders remains a challenge. However, the inclusion of air quality in the focus of the working group represents a new opportunity to strengthen cooperation between different projects. <em><strong>Spring<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Glossary of key terms<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>GDSO (Green Deal Projects Support Office):<\/strong> An office established to facilitate coordination between projects funded under the Horizon 2020 Green Deal call and to maximise their positive long-term impact.<\/li>\n<li><strong>GDC (Green Deal Call):<\/strong> A specific call for proposals under Horizon 2020 aimed at supporting the objectives of the European Green Deal.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Working Group (WG):<\/strong> A thematic group bringing together projects with a similar focus within GDSO to support networking, knowledge exchange and collaboration.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Action plan:<\/strong> A document defining the goals, tasks and planned activities of a working group, which is continuously updated.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fit for 55:<\/strong> A package of European Union policies aimed at achieving the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 55 % by 2030.<\/li>\n<li><strong>RIA (Research and Innovation Action):<\/strong> A type of Horizon Europe project aimed at generating new knowledge or exploring new or improved technologies, products, processes, services or solutions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>IA (Innovation Action):<\/strong> A type of Horizon Europe project aimed at creating plans or designs for new or improved products, processes or services, including prototyping, testing and demonstration.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Multimodal connections and transport hubs:<\/strong> Systems and points that integrate different modes of transport (e.g. road, rail, air, water) to improve the movement of people and goods.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Decarbonization:<\/strong> The process of reducing carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of achieving climate neutrality.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Resource efficiency:<\/strong> Maximizing the use of resources (raw materials, energy, water) while minimizing waste and negative impact on the environment.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Common position papers:<\/strong> Official documents expressing the common views or recommendations of a group of projects on specific policy or technical issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The report presents an overview of the activities of the Urban Environment and Mobility Working Group (Urban Environment and Mobility WG) of the Green Deal Projects Support Office.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptacia-na-zmenu-klimy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}