NetZeroCities is a four-year project designed to help cities overcome the structural, institutional and cultural barriers they face as they work to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. It will enable European cities and citizens to demonstrate ways forward towards an inclusive, thriving, climate resilient and sustainable future. The project will work as a service-oriented platform supported by world-class practitioners.
NetZeroCities will tailor advanced capabilities related to systemic change, citizen engagement and democratic governance, capital and financial structuring, and social innovation, to ensure cities have access to the best expertise available anywhere in the world. The project recognises the need for cities to develop specific strategies that are tailored to suit local and regional contexts and will support them by developing and promoting new and existing tools, resources, and expertise, all of which will be accessible in a one-stop-shop platform available to all cities via an online portal.
In addition, the project will support a series of pilot cities to help drive rapid learning about how to achieve climate neutrality at the city scale. Cities will benefit from hands-on assistance and dedicated services to achieve their net-zero goals.
NetZeroCities is part of the Horizon 2020 Reseach and Innovation Programme in support of the European Union’s Green Deal. The project also supports the EU’s Mission of “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030” launched as part of the Horizon Europe programme, by seeking to scale the activities of this project across 100 cities, and to tackle the unprecedented capital investments needed to make such a transformation possible.