Towards the Green Transition – collaboration for sustainable cities 

The Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) European Partnership is an intergovernmental research and innovation program that addresses key challenges of urban transitions. By working together with DUT, Sweco is combining forces towards the Green Transition. Sharing our knowledge can strengthen and enlarge the positive impact on the global and local urban change. 

Sharing knowledge for more impact

We are combining our forces for the Green Transition. The DUT runs the Transition Pathways program together with companies, governments and other stakeholders. 

Within Sweco, we’re already engaging with this transition through a multilevel knowledge development structure: Urban Insight at Group Level (cross-border cooperation), SIP (cross-division cooperation) and BUUR transition programs (cross-disciplinary cooperation), making our collaboration self-evident. 

Collaboration on circular urban economy 

Sweco has already collaborated with DUT on several projects. One of them is a program focused on circular urban economy. Circular economy experts from various Sweco countries, along with the country project leaders from Urban Insight aimed to collect data on best practice cases in circular urban economy in Europe and provided recommendations for DUT.  Our colleagues Felipe Gonzalez, Kevin Penalva and Kathleen Van de Werf worked on this project.

We led the data collection of these specific cases where DUT could test and refine the database by providing feedback during the process. This helped the organization to define the system boundary that enables resource sharing and to understand the scale at which a best practice case is developed. It can also help to identify relevant stakeholders who can benefit from the value being created.  

The results have been transformed into a framework that not only serves to cluster and label the collected cases, but also provides a holistic framework to define the circular urban economy and is structured based on the four impact values:  

• Systemic innovation in resource efficiency and reduced waste 
• Spatial innovation and regenerative urbanism 
• Process innovation and social benefits in a circular urban economy 
• Other complementary transversal dimensions 

 In the context of DUT, the understanding of circular urban economy goes beyond the traditional interpretation of circularity, which focuses on the reuse of materials and reducing material flows through recycling or upcycling. Like our experts, DUT recognizes that achieving increased circularity requires not only technological advancements and updated business models but also addressing social issues that are prevalent in cities today. These issues include socio-economic inequalities, decreased social cohesion, and unequal access to urban resources, services, and green areas. Circular economy, in this context, is seen as a tool rather than a goal itself, with the aim of achieving improved urban livability by addressing these social challenges. 

You can find the Mapping Circular Economy report here.

Position paper ‘Towards Regenerative Neighbourhoods – European Cases, Insights, and Initiatives’ 

We also shared our expertise in the position paper ‘Towards Regenerative Neighbourhoods – European Cases, Insights, and Initiatives’. Colleague Diego Luna Quintanilla contributed to this publication within the scope of the Inclusive Neighbourhoods transition program. Chapter 6 of this publication “Infrastructures in-between’ features his view on the role of neighbourhood facilities in the transition towards a more circular society, focusing on how placemaking can support circular behaviour. 

The piece includes some interesting cases such as, Bruxelles plante of Bruxelles Mobilité , #estonoesunsolar, Le 56 eco-interstice of Atelier d’architecture autogérée (AAA) and Portland Works, as inspiring examples of the various stages of placemaking. The projects were beautifully illustrated by our colleague Louis Bonte.

Read the position paper.

Webinar Urban Lunch Talks

Sweco participated in a webinar called ‘Urban Lunch Talksu0022. This episode ‘Urban Lunch Talks #28 Repurposing Spaces in Neighbourhoods‘ is a conversation between some of the contributors of the position paper: Annita Douka, Elena Giunta, Ann Maudsley and Diego Luna Quintanilla. The specific topic of the conversation was ‘Alternative ways of using spaces in neighborhoods to facilitate circularity practices.‘