Abstract
Many cities and municipalities have joined the covenant of mayors for climate and energy. In the EU alone, more than 10,000 have signed up and made public their ambitions to achieve net-zero by a certain date. Examples in Belgium include the city of Leuven, which wants to be carbon neutral by 2030. It is one of the front runners of the more than 200 cities, towns and municipalities of Belgium that have started down this path. The usual approach is to divide the city into districts and proceed district by district with a program of activities spanning the development of local systems for renewable energy, energy, and resource efficiency, as well as carbon sequestration. A typical urban district contains many different kinds of actor. These include private residents, some of which are in social housing. They include public institutions such as schools, clinics, sports facilities and public infrastructure for transport and utilities. They include the offices of large companies and of course SMEs, many of these just small family businesses such as shops cafés and small offices. There is a tendency to under-estimate the complexity of the task of implementing energy and climate projects with such a varied and fragmented set of actors. There is a need for planning models that effectively engage with such a wide variety of actors in a single region, over a limited window of time. The author will report on the results of its work in a project entitled INNOVEAS, which studies the problem of how to encourage SME adoption of the energy and climate practices necessary for them to achieve net-zero. This project has ed to the conclusion that there is a need for massive change in the way this issue is addressed by public authorities, and it has established a working group of practitioners to develop a “manifesto for massive change” explaining how the system needs to evolve, the actors, the skills, and capabilities as well as their practices, in order to encourage SMEs to embark on the journey to net zero, at pace and at scale. In parallel with this, the author is working on a second project entitled POLIRURAL, which has piloted a series of innovation in the application of participative governance processes such as Foresight to the development of regional Foresight. The focus in this project is on the COVID recovery plan, the EU Green deal, and the role of biodiversity in next generation economic models. He draws upon recent innovations in the application of participative Foresight for the development and implementation of stake-holder driven action plans and roadmaps intended to drive growth in a post COVID, green economy based on the wedding cake model of sustainability, where natural resources and biodiversity underpin new and emerging models of social and economic development. This project has piloted a number of process and content innovations in the application of Foresight to the challenge of rural development which may be applicable to the challenge of planning for the development of green resilient cities and towns, in particular for the mobilization of SMEs resident in urban areas, whose contribution to achieving the overall ambition of net zero is essential, but which has so far proved elusive.
