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Sustainable urban mobility planning (SUMP) is a strategic and integrated approach to dealing with the complexity of urban transport. One of its eight principles emphasises the importance of taking the entire functional urban area into consideration when developing and implementing such a strategic plan. What must not be forgotten, however, is that a city consists of many different neighbourhoods and this planning level is of equal importance. This SUMP topic guide highlights ways in which planning efforts at the neighbourhood level and at the city-wide level can complement one another. It is based on the experience of the CIVITAS project SUNRISE and its sister projects. The document highlights the specific advantages of planning for sustainable mobility at the neighbourhood level. The neighbourhood is where people’s everyday-life unfolds and where many mobility-related choices are anchored and determined. It is also a spatial level with certain features that can and should be utilised on the way to a more sustainable mobility system. This includes short distances that are conducive to active modes of transport, but also a shared sense of identity, detailed local knowledge and established communication channels etc. Another key advantage of working at the neighbourhood-level is the opportunity to involve residents and stakeholders intensively along all steps of the innovation chain – much more than what is typically possible in city-wide (SUMP) planning processes: The identification of problems, the development of measures, their implementation and their evaluation. The starting point of this Topic Guide is therefore the nexus between “co-creation” as a procedural approach and the neighbourhood as a spatial / social unit. However, there is usually a lack of power at the neighbourhood level, a lack of specialist expertise, of quality data, of paid staff capacity and of influence on infrastructure decisions that affect the neighbourhood. All of this means that efforts at the neighbourhood-level should be “joined-up” with efforts at the city-wide level. It also means that if a city’s high-level mobility planning ignores the reality in its many neighbourhoods, it runs the risk of “structural arrogance” and/or ignorance and simply of limited effectiveness. In other words, if mobility does not “work” in the various neighbourhoods it is unlikely to work in the city as a whole. Therefore, neighbourhood-based and city-wide planning must be aligned. The Topic Guide highlights situations where this alignment makes most sense and how such an alignment can be achieved. If well coordinated, SUMP activities can support actions at the neighbourhood level in various ways and ensure that decentral efforts are compatible with city-wide goals and measures. Vice versa, initiatives for sustainable mobility in a neighbourhood can be the spearhead of certain measures that are supposed to be implemented in the entire city.

For the city of Stuttgart, two distinct visions have been created that are broadly in line with the common ICARUS pathways “Smart Tech City” and “Sharing Smart Communities”. The overall goal is the same for both visions and can be described as optimized welfare and wellbeing with lower pressures to the environment. In the following both visions are presented. A more detailed description of the two visions and a general description of the foreseen transition pathways can be found in the project deliverable D6.31. This report focuses on the transport sector, for which two distinct scenarios (one for each foreseen vision) are compared to a baseline scenario representing the business as usual. The foreseen visions implicate a change in mode choice alternatives. With fully automatic vehicles becoming available, behavioral changes can be expected. With the help of the macroscopic travel demand model of the Stuttgart Region, it is possible to study and evaluate potential implications for the transport sector, which arise from individual decisions and behavioral choices. The simulation of travel demand patterns helps to identify relevant preconditions which are required for a successful transition in the transport sector and to ensure that the foreseen visions are actually feasible. Results showed that the introduction of fully automated shared vehicle fleets for car-sharing or ridesharing is suitable to decrease the number of vehicles needed. This assumes that private car ownership is prohibited, as it is the case in the vision scenarios. Although the vision scenarios do not necessarily improve the traffic situation within the city boundaries, they show the importance of pricing and the relevance of a dense public transport supply. For both scenarios, it was not possible to run the system without adding rail-bound public transport (light rail transit, suburban and regional trains). Thus, apart from a certain share of pedestrians and cyclists, transport always consisted of a mixture of rail-bound public transport and autonomously driving taxis (carsharing in “Smart Tech Cities) or minibuses (ridesharing in “Sharing Smart Communities”). In practice, a mixture of both scenarios would most likely be realized.

This White Paper addresses this imbalance by proposing a paradigm shift - a new approach to valuing natural capital and to enabling its incorporation in the economic system. This document is a synthesis of a longer background report under preparation by the Nature- Based Economy Working Group of Task Force III of the European Commission. The recommendations of this document will be debated at a high level policy dialogue at the end of June 20211 following which they will be shared as part of an open consultation process running until mid September 2021. The outcome of this process will form the basis for an EC Expert Publication on the Nature-based Economy to be launched at the European Business Summit in November 2021. The recommendations of this White Paper provide a basis for dialogue with policy makers, at all levels of government and across all fields of policy implementation, and with wider stakeholders in business, society and the innovation ecosystem on the changes needed to shift towards a Nature-based Economy. It particularly aims at stimulating valuable cross-sectoral policy discussions between policy makers responsible for climate change and biodiversity policy and those responsible for sustainable economic growth policies within the context of rapidly depleting stocks of natural capital. Suggested citation: McQuaid, S., Rhodes, ML., Andersson, T., Croci, E., Feichtinger-Hofer, M., Grosjean, M., Lueck, A. E., Kooijman, E., Lucchitta, B., Rizzi, D., Reil, A., Schante, J. (2021) From Nature-based Solutions to the Nature-based Economy - Delivering the Green Deal for Europe. Draft White Paper for consultation. Nature-based Economy Working Group of EC Task Force III on Nature-based Solutions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5055605. Available at: networknature.eu/Nature-Based-Economy-White-Paper-Consultation

Although the transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land, the potential impacts driven by solar energy remain unexplored. In this work, the potential solar land requirements and related land use change emissions are computed for the EU, India, Japan and South Korea. A novel method is developed within an integrated assessment model which links socioeconomic, energy, land and climate systems. At 25-80% penetration in the electricity mix of those regions by 2050, we find that solar energy may occupy 0.5-5% of total land. The resulting land cover changes, including indirect effects, will likely cause a net release of carbon ranging from 0 to 50 gCO(2)/kWh, depending on the region, scale of expansion, solar technology efficiency and land management practices in solar parks. Hence, a coordinated planning and regulation of new solar energy infrastructures should be enforced to avoid a significant increase in their life cycle emissions through terrestrial carbon losses. Funding was provided by Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de Espana (Grant No. MDM-2017-0714), Horizon 2020 (Grant Nos. 642260, 821105), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades (Grant No. RTI2018-093352-B-I00) and Eusko Jaurlaritza (Grant No. PRE_2017_2_0139).

The study aimed to analyze the economic and environmental sustainability of a case study of an energy power plant that produces electricity from pruning residues of olive groves from nine municipalities in southern Italy. To assess the economic sustainability of the agro-energetic chain, the gross value added (GVA) is calculated. Moreover, the GHG emissions of the agro-energetic pruning supply chain due to both the pruning collection at the field level, and their combustion for energy production at the power plant, are calculated. Moreover, the ecoefficiency ratio was calculated to measure the value added per 1Mg of GHG emitted into the atmosphere. The findings show the whole agro-energetic chain, namely the power plant and the collection company have a good eco-efficiency ratio. In fact, the power plant’s ecoefficiency ratio (2.64€ per 1Mg of GHG) is slightly lower than harvest firm one (2.91€ per 1Mg of GHG). The findings could be useful to develop new business models based on the circular economy concept. In fact, the business model proposed could push entrepreneurs towards new income opportunities, at the same time, helping local farms and reducing the environmental impacts. Proceedings of the 29th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 26-29 April 2021, Online, pp. 1262-1264

This publication is a joint effort of four EU-funded projects - SUNRISE, Cities-4-People, METAMORPHOSIS, Looper - that worked with citizens to co-create mobility solutions at the neighbourhood level. The document provides hands-on recommendations for decision makers and citizens, that emerged as lessons learned from these projects.

The “Final Report on Cross-Case Studies Assessment of Social Innovation” provides a transversal and systematic analysis of the Case Studies of Social innovation (SI) identified in the H2020 SIMRA project (http://www.simra-h2020.eu/) using aggregated qualitative and quantitative empirical information. The cross-case analysis identifies commonalities and differences across the cases in relation to the principal issues and characteristics of social innovation processes in Marginalised Rural Areas and examines complex and situated relationships and interactions. The cross-case assessment of the main social innovation issues and characteristics was based on the investigation of important trends identified within five cross-cutting themes of enquiry: The factors that influence the emergence and development of social innovation in terms of both the context and characteristics of actors. The process of reconfiguration and the changes of social practices (e.g. new networks, new government arrangements). The model of social innovation development and the identification of trajectory of divergence. The impacts of the social innovation on dimensions of territorial capital (economy, society, environment, governance). The analysis of policy impacts on social innovation and social innovation policy implications. In addition to the analysis undertaken for each theme of enquiry, composite indicators were calculated which were based upon the methodology developed in Secco et al. (2019) to better understand Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas on a large scale. Outputs associated with the report are recommendations on factors linked to the success and failure of social innovation initiatives in relation to impacts of policies or on policies. Suggested citation: Ravazzoli, E., Dalla Torre, C., Streifeneder, T., Pisani, E., Da Re, R., Vicentini, K., Secco, L., Górriz-Mifsud, E., Marini Govigli, V., Melnykovych, M., Valero, D., Bryce, R., Weiß, G., Ludvig, A., Zivojinovic, I. and Lukesch, R. 2020. Final Report on Cross-Case Studies Assessment of Social Innovation. Deliverable 5.4, Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas (SIMRA). Report to the European Commission, pp. 119. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3666742

The increased production and consumption of biomass renewable based materials and fuels could lead to substantial changes in the way land is used. It is crucial, therefore, to adopt policy instruments in order to mitigate land use change resulting from environmental and social risks (e.g. loss of carbon stocks, loss of biodiversity, land grabbing). Based on an analysis of existing policies, as well as STAR-ProBio findings, this deliverable aims to deliver recommendations to policy makers when developing bioeconomy and in particular bio-based products related policies. It focuses on land use governance mechanisms enabling to mitigate the risk of the unwanted effects of land use change, whenever the use of renewable raw materials is promoted in policies and legislation. The general approach of this policy overview was to distinguish between policies whose aim is to promote the use of biomass, and can hence be seen as a driver of land use and land use change, and on the other hand, policies laying down requirements on how land may be used. In particular we reflect on zoning and protected areas (1); monitoring mechanisms (2); mandatory targets and objectives on best practices and low impact products (3) caps on and bans of most impactful practices and high impact products (4); financial incentives and market instruments (5); and validation and assurance through certification (6).