CLIMABOROUGH partners meet in Cascais for two days

In the city of Cascais, the CLIMABOROUGH partners discussed several topics crucial to the challenge of climate change and the practical implications of the Innovation Partnership approach adopted to find solutions towards climate neutrality.

CLIMABOROUGH chose the Innovation Partnership model because it recognizes that cities should play the role of innovation drivers rather than simply acting as passive buyers. This raises several intriguing questions: how can requirements be formulated in a way that attracts conscientious companies to demonstrate the effectiveness of their services/products in addressing the challenge of climate neutrality? Are operational data of the proposed solutions sufficient to assess their effectiveness, or do we need to develop completely independent KPIs? Is it possible to engage applicants in designing the sandbox implementation plan with cities?

Furthermore, CLIMABOROUGH will implement sandboxes in accordance with the view that they are experimental drivers of climate transition. This means that we need to conceptualise sandboxes as truly disruptive, temporary attempts to enable local ecosystems to deal with systemic transformations, or at least with a good prototype, simulation, or idea of them. What is the limit to their disruptiveness? On the one hand, if a sandbox enables a highly innovative and disruptive experiment, it could generate resistance to transformation; on the other hand, it needs to ensure a clear perception of the transformative potential to prove its effectiveness towards climate neutrality. Making decisions will not be easy. It will require a responsible and informed commitment from our cities and a deep understanding of the learning potential of our experiments.

Stay tuned… we are learning a lot!