Periodic Reporting for period 3 - AURORA (Achieving a new European Energy Awareness.)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-06-01 al 2025-11-30
The AURORA project is promoting the adoption and aims to champion the role of citizens in the energy transition. AURORA is driving social communities to act on the energy transition by becoming energy communities focusing on educational drivers. AURORA is promoting an education rationale, providing citizens with first-hand experiences to create awareness of the impact that their daily decisions have on the environment and the energy system. The role of the public sector as a hub belonging to citizens is critical in our approach. We are challenging universities and municipalities to find practical ways to work with their communities to provide such education.
The general objective of AURORA is to run a citizen science initiative driven by people’s motivation to improve their carbon footprint related to electricity, heating/cooling and mobility, with the final goal of creating the first generations of Near Zero-Emission Citizens.
By upgrading current established “non pro-environmental” 4 social communities, exemplified in university communities and a rural neighbourhood cluster, to new civic consortia acting as Citizen Science hubs, AURORA empowers citizens on the path towards such climate neutrality by increasing the awareness, providing new energy
choices and thereby fostering systemic changes toward more sustainable lifestyles. AURORA targets the exploitation of the collected data through Citizen Science practices enabling novel scientific studies and improving other ones.
To accomplish its crucial mission, AURORA has set the following specific objectives.
Specific Objective 1. Mobilise together 7,000 citizens who will research on the nexus energy behaviour-climate change mitigation, by setting up 5 strategic demonstrators for implementing and testing the AURORA European Energy Awareness Rationale.
Specific Objective 2. To create the first generation of “Near Zero-Emission Citizens”, by promoting behavioural change processes through Citizen Science, environmental observation and civic consortia.
Specific Objective 3. To create Ambassadors for climate action.
The general objective of AURORA is to run a citizen science initiative driven by people’s motivation to improve their carbon footprint related to electricity, heating/cooling and mobility, with the final goal of creating the first generations of Near Zero-Emission Citizens.
By upgrading current established “non pro-environmental” 4 social communities, exemplified in university communities and a rural neighbourhood cluster, to new civic consortia acting as Citizen Science hubs, AURORA empowers citizens on the path towards such climate neutrality by increasing the awareness, providing new energy
choices and thereby fostering systemic changes toward more sustainable lifestyles. AURORA targets the exploitation of the collected data through Citizen Science practices enabling novel scientific studies and improving other ones.
To accomplish its crucial mission, AURORA has set the following specific objectives.
Specific Objective 1. Mobilise together 7,000 citizens who will research on the nexus energy behaviour-climate change mitigation, by setting up 5 strategic demonstrators for implementing and testing the AURORA European Energy Awareness Rationale.
Specific Objective 2. To create the first generation of “Near Zero-Emission Citizens”, by promoting behavioural change processes through Citizen Science, environmental observation and civic consortia.
Specific Objective 3. To create Ambassadors for climate action.
I. The development of a quantitative energy responsibility indicator towards the goals set by the EU Green Deal. The indicator has been fully developed for 27 Member States and thoroughly reviewed by 12 international experts with positive feedback.
II. The algorithm is implemented in the AURORA ENERGY TRACKER app for 27 European countries and the UK. More than 1900 users accounts have provided AURORA near 210,000 energy data consumption habits in a citizen science project. Exploitation is looking for a global international adoption.
III. A public dashboard is available: https://dashboard.aurora-h2020.eu/en-GB(si apre in una nuova finestra) with exploitable behavioral energy patterns data
IV. The creation of educational hubs and encouragement public bodies to constitute energy communities using different business models that reflect local legislative and cultural challenges. As for June 24, University of Aarhus has already created the energy community , involving micro-investments from 121 people of the University. In Madrid a similar approach allowed to install a PV facility and 2 heat-pumps in a primary school with 161 people. A similar approach is ending in the UK (Forest of Dean) and a virtual energy Community has been also created at the University of Ljubljana.
V. More than 130 in-person educational events have been organized engaging c.a. 11,000 people. The majority of them are hands-on activities requesting a high commitment level from the citizens.
VI. 13 contributions to high impact journals, supported by 20 contributions in International conferences and other 20 in webinars or international events, webinars and online sessions organized, attendance to policy sessions and policy-briefs prepared.
In summary, the AURORA project has made significant strides in implementing its rationale. AURORA comprehensive approach not only facilitates the adoption of clean energy technologies but also cultivates a culture of sustainability and inspires collective action towards a greener future.
II. The algorithm is implemented in the AURORA ENERGY TRACKER app for 27 European countries and the UK. More than 1900 users accounts have provided AURORA near 210,000 energy data consumption habits in a citizen science project. Exploitation is looking for a global international adoption.
III. A public dashboard is available: https://dashboard.aurora-h2020.eu/en-GB(si apre in una nuova finestra) with exploitable behavioral energy patterns data
IV. The creation of educational hubs and encouragement public bodies to constitute energy communities using different business models that reflect local legislative and cultural challenges. As for June 24, University of Aarhus has already created the energy community , involving micro-investments from 121 people of the University. In Madrid a similar approach allowed to install a PV facility and 2 heat-pumps in a primary school with 161 people. A similar approach is ending in the UK (Forest of Dean) and a virtual energy Community has been also created at the University of Ljubljana.
V. More than 130 in-person educational events have been organized engaging c.a. 11,000 people. The majority of them are hands-on activities requesting a high commitment level from the citizens.
VI. 13 contributions to high impact journals, supported by 20 contributions in International conferences and other 20 in webinars or international events, webinars and online sessions organized, attendance to policy sessions and policy-briefs prepared.
In summary, the AURORA project has made significant strides in implementing its rationale. AURORA comprehensive approach not only facilitates the adoption of clean energy technologies but also cultivates a culture of sustainability and inspires collective action towards a greener future.
Although we are indeed working on a European project, we must be aware that the European Commission has set out to lead actions against climate change. Our framework of action is not exclusively Europe, as if this were a technology that only serves Europe. In fact, while climate change action is important in Europe, it is almost insignificant in terms of carbon emissions compared to the rest of the world. This is why AURORA, from the beginning, has been working to ensure that the impact of our actions is global and not just local. We are creating alliances and strongly insisting with international organizations, such as the UN Science Policy Business Forum (UNSPBF ) and the Citizen Science Global Partnership (CSGP ) as well as the EU Climate Pact responsible, for launching Global Citizen Science environmental programs based on successful local cases.
The Stockholm Environment Institute has only identified five programs acting in this direction, on of them is AURORA. Therefore, AURORA must demonstrate how different citizen science models can be globally useful. Our goal is to be able to:
1. Strengthen the MEAs where Europe can play a catalytic role with its success stories.
2. Show the world how social buildings such as universities, schools, NGOs, libraries, and leisure centers in municipalities worldwide can serve as hubs of social action for collective environmental education.
3. Prove that citizen science is a tool that can obtain currently unknown data, which has a similar degree of validity to that offered by national or international statistical agencies.–
Therefore, within this framework of global action, what does AURORA complete can be summarizes it in 5 points:
1. Demosntrate a rationale for real engagement of 11,000 people working on different aspects to mitigate climate change.
2. Verify the data from the AURORA app and ensure its accuracy.
3. Validate citizen science (CS) as a tool for correlating socioeconomic factors with energy consumption and carbon emissions based on birth year, category, gender, country, and household profile, and analyze the validity of the acquired citizen data.
4. Encourage new replications and create a network of international Ambassadors to spread the word.
5. Collaborate with key organizations to train future trainees.
The Stockholm Environment Institute has only identified five programs acting in this direction, on of them is AURORA. Therefore, AURORA must demonstrate how different citizen science models can be globally useful. Our goal is to be able to:
1. Strengthen the MEAs where Europe can play a catalytic role with its success stories.
2. Show the world how social buildings such as universities, schools, NGOs, libraries, and leisure centers in municipalities worldwide can serve as hubs of social action for collective environmental education.
3. Prove that citizen science is a tool that can obtain currently unknown data, which has a similar degree of validity to that offered by national or international statistical agencies.–
Therefore, within this framework of global action, what does AURORA complete can be summarizes it in 5 points:
1. Demosntrate a rationale for real engagement of 11,000 people working on different aspects to mitigate climate change.
2. Verify the data from the AURORA app and ensure its accuracy.
3. Validate citizen science (CS) as a tool for correlating socioeconomic factors with energy consumption and carbon emissions based on birth year, category, gender, country, and household profile, and analyze the validity of the acquired citizen data.
4. Encourage new replications and create a network of international Ambassadors to spread the word.
5. Collaborate with key organizations to train future trainees.