8. Event des Online Advisory Programme

Three innovative projects from Cologne, Munich and the Mexican state of Yucatán were presented, which use individual and diverse approaches to strengthen sustainability and resilience in cities. These show how important inter-municipal cooperation and the participation of the population are for shaping the sustainable cities of the future.

The first project was presented by Julia Egenolf from the city of Cologne. The mayor's advisor on sustainability issues shows what climate adaptation can look like in the built and physical environment. As part of the EU-funded GrowSmarter project, blueprints for the sustainable urban development of the future were created together with Stockholm and Barcelona. To this end, the Stegerwaldsiedlung was renovated to make it more energy-efficient and also equipped with digital solutions. Heating systems in the individual buildings have been replaced by a centralised district heating system and energy management based on a cloud solution was one of the first implementations of its kind. Citizens now receive information about their energy consumption via a district app and can save energy independently.

Dr Hany Abo El Wafa from the City of Munich took the participants from the physical to the digital world. In the "Connected Urban Twins" project, interactive models of cities, so-called "Digital Urban Twins", are being developed for integrated urban development in cooperation with Leipzig and Hamburg. These not only enable visualisations for information purposes and the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes, but also make it possible to better understand needs and opportunities in the future and make data-based decisions.

The realisation of FabCity Yucatán from the ISCN network shows how digital solutions for the climate and citizen participation can fit into a pocket. Dr Irving Aaron Cifuentes presented how apps can be used to protect cities, residents, resources and the region's rich cultural heritage. While the Movidata app makes it possible to evaluate self-collected data on public transport use and gain knowledge about the service and one's own usage behaviour, the Climate Action Platform can be used to visualise the impact of various urban actors on the achievement of climate targets. With the Arbol mid app, citizens can identify various trees in the cityscape and thus get to know their neighbourhood better. As in Cologne and Munich, citizens are actively involved in decision-making processes for sustainable urban development as part of the Sensa Citizen Project.

The discussion during the event showed that citizen-centred design, inter-municipal exchange and the integration of the approach of scaling solutions from the beginning of a project are essential to enable resilient and green urban development in the long term.