Thank you for your interest in our recent E Co. institute Adaptation training webinar, ‘Sustainable cities & tech innovation’. Welcome to your replay kit.
On Thursday 28 September, Dr Grant Ballard-Tremeer, David Leipziger, and Dr Miodrag Grujić held an incredibly interesting and illustrative session on sustainable cities and technological innovations.
What is the role of cities when it comes to climate change? As massive waste-producers, energy-consumers, and transport-users, cities are some of the biggest contributors to national carbon emissions, directly affecting or even setting the agenda of emissions profiles in a country or region.
In this webinar, our expert team helped registrants build an understanding of how cities impact climate, from policy programmes to emission sectors (such as buildings, WASH, and transport), and how these areas are structurally constrained by policy, equity, and finance. They also explored innovative technological solutions, such as digitalisation.
In this replay kit, you’ll be able to learn what registrants learned on the day – plus more:
- Watch the full webinar session here
- Ask our consultants
- Access the training materials
- Training and updates from E Co. institute
Watch the full webinar session
Ask our consultants
1. Have you observed a significant increase in Urban Forestry initiatives in carbon reduction infrastructure investments as not only a climate adaptation strategy but also for community provisioning (gardening/food)?
We haven’t seen a huge uptake in urban forestry so much as carbon reduction infrastructure. The preponderance of carbon storage or carbon reduction investments that we see on an urban scale are focused on carbon offsets, which leads to a deeper conversation about the overall efficacy of carbon offsetting in general. In the UK, for example, many urban development projects are offsetting with big urban forestry or urban reforestation projects, so there is potentially an increase in the awareness of and investment in green infrastructure as part of urban development.
In terms of community provisioning, gardens, and food (which is slightly different than urban forestry), these things are common, but there aren’t many initiatives at sufficient scale in urban locales. There are investments happening – the largest urban farm in the world has just been built outside of Paris – but in terms of significant increases in the number of projects, we don’t see this happening as often as you’d expect (or hope for).
2. Can you overlay the digital smart users and urban CO2. In other words is it worth to accelerate the smart homes?
There is not much evidence that we’ve seen of the overlaying of digitalisation and CO2 emissions, although this is not to say that it doesn’t exist. We can look at the use and effectiveness of digitalisation investments specifically – for example, comparing a newly-digitalised neighbourhood’s emissions performance to its pre-digitalisation period.
Another example is that of demand-side response (DSR), which is currently used in various locations around the globe. This could be in the form of businesses increasing or decreasing their energy use in relation to a system that tracks grid use, or tenants in a building having the opportunity to keep track of their energy and heating consumption, reduce their consumption, and consequently help the heating and energy grids strategise energy need. Through this, end-users can then reduce their energy costs.
3. What is the best strategy to build joint work between the private and public sectors in the digitalisation of developing countries? Specifically in the digitalisation of buildings.
Cooperation between the public sector and the private sector for the purpose of digital transformation can take place on multiple channels and in different roles. The most common way implies that the public sector creates preconditions that enable the private sector to act. The role of the state, regional, or local governments in creating a regulatory framework is very important. This framework includes stimulating digitalisation through public procurement, establishing guarantee mechanisms, various financial incentives, and showing a successful case on its own example. These actions create the necessary preconditions for the application of technologies where the private sector is dominantly involved through equipment manufacturers, importers, dealers, installers, managers, and trainers.
Also, the private sector includes many companies that, as owners or users of buildings, take the role of clients or buyers of digital technologies. Considering this connection between the public sector and the private sector, it can be concluded that communication between them at all stages is crucial and necessary for the success of digital transformation.
Access the training materials
We’ve made sure that you can access this presentation in this replay kit.
Training and updates from E Co. institute
E Co. institute is the training division of E Co. and is run by our project formulation experts. E Co. institute builds on our experience developing low-carbon, climate-resilient projects & programmes and the specialist training workshops we’ve conducted across the globe. Our trainings, coaching, and courses are intended for mid-level professionals working in UN agencies, NGOs, bilateral organisations, development banks, and local or country government officials. For more information, see here for how we can help you and your team.
- If you’re interested in learning more about E Co. institute‘s bespoke training services for you and your team, you can email Dr Grant Ballard-Tremeer at: grant@ecoltdgroup.com and we’ll be happy to arrange a 30-minute call with our consultants to discuss this further.
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About these resources
These training resources are an initiative of E Co., emerging from work we are doing to develop low-carbon, climate-resilient projects. E Co. has produced the resources independently.