Open call for cities
In November 2020, we worked with Teknikföretagen, Viable Cities, UN-Habitat, Smart City Sweden, Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Expo 2020 Sweden to launch the Climate Smart Cities Challenge open call. This was the first stage of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge and an opportunity for cities to apply to be a partner to run an open innovation competition that will invite a global pool of technologists, businesses and investors to develop, test and scale cutting-edge solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a better future for all.
We were looking for cities to tell us about their aspirations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions whilst creating thriving communities. These could have included a wide range of interventions across multiple sectors or a combination, such as urban form and physical design, transport, waste management, food production, energy systems, housing, ecosystems, use of public space and others. We were interested in hearing about challenges that, if solved, would not only reduce or offset emissions but would also promote other sustainability and livability goals for cities
Four cities were selected in April 2021 who, alongside the challenge partners, would support innovators to develop, test and scale cutting-edge solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under an open innovation competition. The cities were Bogotá, Bristol, Curitiba and Makindye Ssabagabo.
Four city-based challenges
In November 2021, we worked with UN-Habitat and Sweden to launch the four Climate Smart Cities Challenges at the Swedish Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. The climate challenges of these four cities ranged from green and affordable homes, net-zero-carbon neighbourhoods to urban freight management. The Challenge invited innovative organisations of different types and sizes to submit their best approaches, solutions and technologies to reduce carbon emissions while providing positive impacts on the quality of life in the four cities.
The Climate Smart Cities Challenge used an open innovation competition process, where teams of innovators were selected to collaborate with cities and investors to demonstrate climate smart approaches that will inform future investments in the cities. The outcomes of the competition will have a significant impact on the four cities’ responses to climate change by significantly strengthening their capacity to engage in diverse partnerships and enabling communities and innovators to play a key role in designing people-driven solutions.
In January 2022, 45 finalists were selected from nearly 200 proposals, which were reviewed by an expert advisory panel, the cities and the Climate Smart Cities Challenge partners. The solutions proposed by teams of innovators will tackle specific challenges in four cities (Bogotá, Bristol, Curitiba and Makindye Ssabagabo) such as freight mobility and affordable housing.
