Gathering 31 partners from 10 different countries, DECARBOMILE aims to trigger an unprecedented improvement of the green last mile logistics in Europe. To reach that goal, DECARBOMILE relies on a strong experience of decarbonating urban logistics through European initiatives such as CIVITAS. Partners will build upon all previous results to develop improved delivery methods, tools and methodologies, and implement them across Europe. The solutions developed in DECARBOMILE will demonstrate the full potential of decarbonised last mile logistics in four living labs (in Logrono - Spain, Nantes -France, Hamburg - Germany and Istanbul - Turkey) and 4 satellites (Tallinn - Estonia, Getafe - Spain, Ghent - Belgium and Sarajevo - Bosnia and Herzegovina) will be involved at a smaller scale to test and study the solution in their own local contexts. To be successful in its implementation, DECARBOMILE will rely on developed methodologies to implement the new solutions and delivery methods in collaboration with all relevant local stakeholders, based on their needs and behaviours. The relation with and between stakeholders will be facilitated by the creation of a collaborative urban consolidation logistics framework that will include a digital platform, methodologies for collaboration, and ICT and IoT tools. This common framework, along with tailored innovative business models and recommendations on local policies, will allow for a strong collaboration during the project, allow to learn more about the end-users’ needs and behaviours. The delivery methods will be strongly improved with urban consolidation centres, micro urban consolidation centres including smart lockers, innovations on cargo bikes and how they can be used with load pooling for instance, electric barge and more. The goal is to use and improve existing solutions and allow their interoperability and modularity to improve their efficiency and use their complementarity.

mySMARTLife project aims at the development of an Urban Transformation Strategy to support cities in the definition of transition models, as a suitable path to reach high level of excellence in its development process, addressing the main city challenges and progressing to the smart people and smart economy concepts. The main instrument to achieve this very ambitious strategy will be the definition of the Advanced Urban Planning, consisting of an integrated approach of the planned city interventions on the basis of a rigorous impact assessment, an active citizen engagement in the decision-making process and a structured business approach, from the city business model perspective, to the economic framework for big companies and local SMEs and Start-Ups. Nantes (France), Hamburg (Germany) and Helsinki (Finland) are the lighthouse cities and Varna (Bulgaria), Bydgoszcz (Poland), Rijeka (Croatia) and Palencia (Spain) the followers. All of them will be involved in the overall project development assuming different and complementary roles. Energy and Climate mitigation plans in the lighthouse cities are completely compliant with the objectives of Covenant of Mayors initiative, as it is reflected; first regarding the early participation of the cities in Covenant of Mayors and second, considering the ambition of their SEAPs, that were submitted, evaluated, approved and are monitored by Covenant of Mayors. Aligned with these objectives, the commitment of the lighthouses is the deployment of a big set of large scale interventions and at least two years of data collection to make a depth analysis of the results, calculating standard KPIs, evaluating the associated impacts and disseminating the results. Followers will be very close to this demonstration, collaborating in the definition and deployment, analysing the problem from the point of view of their own city challenges and extracting knowledge, best practices and lessons learnt for a further replication.

URBiNAT focuses on the regeneration and integration of deprived social housing urban developments through an innovative and inclusive catalogue of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), ensuring sustainability and mobilising driving forces for social cohesion. Interventions focus on the public space to co-create with citizens new urban, social and nature-based relations within and between different neighbourhoods. Taking the full physical, mental and social well-being of citizens as its main goal, URBiNAT aims to co-plan a healthy corridor as an innovative and flexible NBS, which itself integrates a large number of micro NBS emerging from community-driven design processes. URBiNAT consists of a worldwide consortium of academic and business partners around 7 European cities (Porto, Nantes and Sofia as ‘frontrunners’; Siena, Nova Gorica, Brussels and Høje-Taastrup as followers), that will act as living laboratories to implement healthy corridor solutions. The cities will be supported by local partners, associations and research centres, and by Europe-wide centres, universities and companies. These will develop a participatory process, an NBS catalogue and a healthy corridor, while monitoring impacts, disseminating and marketing results. Together, they form an inclusive community of practice (CoP), collaborating with partners from Iran and China, and NBS observers located in Brazil, Oman, Japan and a Chinese city, bringing experiences and an international dimension to the project. Partners will contribute their innovative NBS experience deployed through an array of transdisciplinary knowledge, methodologies and tools, as nature-based solutions. This will be supplmented by ‘smart’ digital tools, citizen engagement, solidarity and social economy initiatives, social innovation for value-generation, incubation for business development and capacity building, and ICT governance platforms. The social, economic and urban impacts will be measured and replicated by URBiNAT Observatory.