Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities

Background and scope

Cities occupy only 4% of the EU's land mass[[European Environment Agency, Analysing and managing urban growth, European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, 2019, https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/analysing-and-managing-urban-growth]] , but are home to 75% of EU citizens[[Urban population (% of total population) - European Union | Data]]. Worldwide, cities account for more than 65% of energy consumption and more than 70% of CO2 emissions[[This global figure includes emissions beyond cities (e.g. emissions physically taking place well outside a city but “triggered” by the cities). The estimate for EU-27 using the Eurostat definition of cities (i.e. more than 50,000 inhabitants) would be 36% of GHG coming directly from cities.]]. Cities are also disproportionately exposed to the impacts of climate change.

Cities therefore have a clear incentive to be at the forefront of efforts to support low-carbon transitions, which will in turn support the EU in achieving its ambitious goals, set out under the European Green Deal[[The European Green Deal - European Commission]] and other related policies to move towards a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050. At the same time, accelerating this transition strengthens EU competitiveness by fostering place-based innovation and creating lead markets for clean technologies. It also enhances resilience and reduces strategic dependencies, notably by promoting more diversified, circular and resource-efficient urban systems. The transformation of cities will also deliver wider co-benefits such as reduced air and noise pollution, more sustainable mobility, improved health and well-being, reduced urban environmental footprints, enhanced urban greening and biodiversity, reducing road fatalities, more efficient use of energy and infrastructures, as well as improved waste and water management.

Through its EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities[[EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities]], the European Commission is collaborating with over 100 cities committed to accelerating their transformation to climate neutrality, while start-ups and scale-ups across Europe are already developing deep-tech solutions to support this goal. The aim of this EIC Accelerator Challenge is to accelerate Europe’s transition by scaling up innovative companies and connecting them with the Cities Mission for real-world deployment.

This Challenge competition focuses on deep-tech solutions including Nature-based Solutions (NbS)[[Defined by the United Nations Environment Assembly as ‘actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services and resilience and biodiversity benefits.]] and engineering approaches.

Expected Outcomes and Impacts

By targeting deep tech, this Challenge looks to develop and commercially scale solutions needed by cities across Europe to:

• Deliver measurable decarbonisation improvements in the areas of buildings and energy, mobility and resource management[[Aligning with for example the Water Resilience Investment Accelerator announced in the Water Resilience Strategy]], supporting urban transformation to climate-neutrality.
• Deploy scalable solutions that can be adapted to different urban contexts with varying environmental and demographic challenges.
• Deliver tangible benefits for residents and the environment in terms of energy consumption, pollution reduction, increased biodiversity and mobility, while enhancing health, wellbeing, equity, accessibility, affordability and quality of life for those who live and work in cities.

The EIC will also, through its Business Acceleration Services, especially the innovation procurement programme, connect the startups and SMEs supported under this Challenge with the network of cities engaged in the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, to further accelerate the uptake of breakthrough solutions.