To reach carbon neutrality, cities must adopt new, more adapted energy models for urban mobility, relying on zero-emission and active mobility modes. The uptake of sustainable mobility solutions relies on their inclusivity, affordability and safety, as well as their consistency with users’ needs. Through co-creation activities and innovative digital tools, the AMIGOS project will identify present and future mobility challenges for 5 cities (living labs) and 10 urban areas (safety improvement areas). The digital tools include a Mobility Observation Box and an application for the collection of new mobility data, which will feed a big data platform for their analysis and digital twins to visualize mobility scenarios. They will allow urban stakeholders to identify mobility challenges and will serve as a basis for the co-development of adapted mobility solutions: towards reducing traffic, increasing public and active mobility modes, improving safety and co-habitation between different mobilities for the 5 cities, and towards increased safety for the 10 urban areas. Therefore, key stakeholders such as public authorities and vulnerable users will be included in the definition of technological and policy solutions mobility solutions which will be implemented in the cities. Their environmental, safety, economic and social impacts will be assessed, in addition to their medium- and long-term impact and their replicability, in view of their implementation in 5 twin cities.

Climate change poses significant threats to human health and well-being, impacting not only the EU Boreal region but also Europe as a whole. The increasing frequency and severity of extreme events, like floods, wildfires, rising sea levels, and heatwaves have far-reaching consequences for local communities. The need to adapt to climate change's impacts and embrace transformative solutions has garnered recent political attention. Nevertheless, recent extreme incidents, such as the 2021 wildfires in the Boreal region and similar events in Europe, have underscored the imperative of systemic actions and revealed the disproportionate vulnerability of already marginalized populations. The AURORA project aims to enhance resilience against health risks stemming from climate change and contribute to the overarching Mission objectives. It seeks to achieve this by developing a suite of tools capable of: 1) Monitoring climate stressors, 2) Creating climate and epidemiological models 3) Generating forecasts via simulated scenarios 4) Identifying climate change risks and vulnerabilities in the Boreal region. These risks will be complemented by a reliable AI-driven technology that will 5) Issue early warnings and recommend adaptive measures and nature-based solutions. These components will form a robust Decision Support system providing specific recommendations. The AURORA consortium, with its vast experience in research projects, envisions active engagement with stakeholders throughout all project stages via an Implementation Hub. This engagement aims to foster behavioral change and showcase the project's solutions in 5 Demo cities (Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Tampere, Pori ) and 3 replicant cities (Klaipeda, Joniskis, Jurmala). The knowledge and insights generated by AURORA will be disseminated through clustering activities, ultimately empowering local policymakers to make evidence-based decisions, reassess strategies, and develop management plans for climate-resilient cities.

In the Covenant of Mayors signatories commit to a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan. However, often municipalities lack capacity to turn their plans into actions; and the residential sector is often left behind and deep renovations not implemented. Realizing this potential requires designing, financing and implementing complex energy efficiency investments. Practice shows that small and medium municipalities are inadequately organized to manage and finance this process. At the same time individual owners in the residential sector are inadequately organized to manage their collective property. Accelerate SUNShINE supports Energy Performance Contracting (EPC), with a pipeline of projects worth €27m and guaranteed savings over 27GWh/year. A major objective is to demonstrate the financial viability of deep renovation via suitable project bundling, municipal partnerships and financial engineering. In the proposed approach four municipalities works together in a shared project management unit, composed by experts covering technical, socio-economic, legal and financial advisory. This unit deals with project development and process standardization. In each municipality public buildings are bundled for Energy Performance contracting based procurement. At the same time each municipality establish a support scheme for the deep renovation of multifamily residential buildings always based on Energy Performance contracting and continuing the effort made by SUNShINE. As most ESCOs have limited balance sheet capacity, re-financing is usually achieved by selling future receivables by a forfaiting transaction. Accelerate SUNShINE supports this solution, further rolling out the Latvian Baltic Energy Efficiency Facility, which is an investment fund with a single purpose: forfaiting receivables from EPC. Here process standardization is very important for attracting private and institutional investors.