By 2030, cities will play a pivotal role in climate action – especially in Europe, where local governments are striving for the EU Green Deal’s 55% emissions reduction. This commitment promises tangible improvements in our cities – cleaner air, safer transport, equitable cities, among others. This cannot be done by cities alone, and the role of the private sector is crucial to achieving these goals. Industry players like Google are demonstrating that they are committed to partnering with local governments to face the climate emergency.
Climate partnerships between private sector partners and local governments have massive potential; for example, Google is supporting 500 cities to collectively reduce carbon emissions by 1 gigaton per year. Furthermore, Google partners with ICLEI Europe to help cities use the Environmental Insights Explorer (Google EIE) to support data-driven climate action.
ICLEI Europe and Google EIE hosted a summit during the recent Smart City Expo and World Congress, engaging 28 participants from nine cities to explore the challenges and opportunities in achieving their environmental and climate goals. The dialogue unfolded across three crucial themes: nature-based solutions, the built environment, and sustainable mobility. Cities shared their successes using data for climate action, ongoing challenges around data collection, and the necessity of collaborative efforts with stakeholders to generate meaningful insights for data-driven decision-making.
Nature-based solutions discussions highlighted the need to track biodiversity loss/gain, with cities like ICLEI Member Tampere (Finland) aiming for net zero biodiversity loss. Stockholm’s focus on increasing tree canopy and access to green areas and ICLEI Member Cascais’ (Portugal) biodiversity goals underscored the importance of green infrastructure development for cities. Leveraging Google’s resources for comparative analysis and boundary delineation of neighbouring areas was emphasised.
In the built environment realm, discussions centred on a district-level renovation wave, emphasising the importance of defining a carbon budget framework that could allow cities to advance in specific energy efficiency projects guided by clear business models.
ICLEI Member Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain) focused on transportation, describing techniques for monitoring sustainable mobility impacts, highlighting limitations of traditional surveys with a 5-10 year cadence. ICLEI Member Stockholm (Sweden) echoed this sentiment, identifying transportation as its greatest hurdle; Stockholm aims for an 80% overall emissions reduction in the sector and a 30% cut in traffic.
The collaboration between Google EIE, ICLEI Europe, and European cities marks a transformative step toward creating data-driven tools to support the development of urban environments that are environmentally sustainable and climate resilient. This collaboration signifies a shared journey towards bringing the green and digital agendas of cities together.