The Journey 2016
Themes and Challenges
The activities of Climate-KIC are driven by four
climate-relevant themes, each with their own specific
set of ‘climate impact hot topics’. Journey participants
are encouraged to look for exciting and innovative
solutions to these challenges.
1. Urban Transitions (UT)
The Urban transitions theme focuses on innovative
solutions for urban areas which overcome our silothinking, as well as technological breakthroughs able to
deliver great impact in an efficient manner. The theme
has three different scales of activity: building,
district and city. Overall vision: to develop
integrated, interoperable, scalable and replicable
systemic solutions to underpin the carbon-negative,
responsive resilient cities of the future.
Climate impact hot topics
Shared energy storage systems
Cities have to reduce GHG emissions. Energy is one big lever for
such a reduction. Energy storage is at present a great challenge
with regards to increasing renewables in the energy mix.
There is a need for business ideas on shared energy storage systems.
The question is how to reduce the waste of excess energy through
sharing the storage between different players, making use of
existing infrastructures.
Smart use of space
With the increasing influx of people, cities need more space. Given
that sprawling settlement leads to increased mobility and thus
increases of GHG emissions, there is a demand for the smart use of
existing space, including business models for shared space.
Greener transportation
The increasing mobility of people and goods constitutes a big
portion of cities’ GHG emissions and reduces the citizens’ level of
well-being. Cities are in need of customer-friendly solutions to
reduce the GHG emissions in the transportation sector.
2. Sustainable Land Use
(SLU)
The Sustainable land use theme aims to strengthen landuse mitigation, sequestration and adaptation through
innovative tools and systems that articulate new value
chains and contribute to green growth. This theme
focuses particularly on developing climate-smart
agriculture and forestry practices, and embedding these
in existing or new value chains of wood, bioeconomy and
food products. Other forms of land use - natural
ecosystems and settlements - are to be addressed through
systemic approaches, taking into consideration their
trade-offs with other land use forms.
Climate impact hot topics
Food value chains
Food value chains are still disconnected from climate-smart
agricultural practices. Three aspects could potentially have high
environmental impact:
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a. High demand in tropical and exotic agricultural products have
huge negative climate impact. Do you have ideas for disruptive
business models targeted at these value chains, which also take
into consideration deforestation in developing countries?
b. Very fresh crops (lettuce, herbs, edible flowers) are
particularly challenging in terms of value chains. However, they
can be well adapted to urban agriculture. Can you think of
disruptive ways to produce and commercialize these products that
could change their carbon footprint and decrease production
costs?
c. There are many good initiatives in climate-smart agriculture and
forestry but they often fail in their market approach. (For
example, many biobased fertilisers are ready to be commercialised
but the demand side is not developed.) Can you think of ways to
connecting value created on the production side to the demand
side?
Smart agriculture and forestry
Climate-smart agricultural practices and forestry have a lot of
similar characteristics but most of the time production and
commercialisation is done independently. Ideas are needed to improve
the following three areas:
a. Improving the carbon sink function in one or both systems.
b. Making our landscape more resilient
c. Enhancing productivity.
Biomass valorisation
There is a need to develop new ways to valorise biomass by creating
circular economic systems. This should be done by looking carefully
at the economic and biologic local eco-system to avoid the
destruction of forest or bad use of crops, and to answer the demand
side. Two areas in particular could be explored:
a. Building sector and the demand for more sustainable housing
b. Bio-based economy for a better valorisation of biomass.
3. Sustainable Production
Systems (SPS)
The Sustainable production systems theme works to
catalyse the transition to a carbon-neutral economy
through innovative cross-industry co-operation and by
supporting technological and business-model innovation
in regional clusters and value chains. This theme works
on the basis that carbon-neutral value chains and zero-
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waste systems based on the circular economy and bioeconomy are the future foundation of Europe's industry.
The approach is to accelerate the transition to
economically viable circular models, decoupling economic
growth from unsustainable resource use and GHG emissions
to create a carbon-neutral economy.
Climate impact hot topics
Plastic recycling
More than 50% of the world's population is currently living in
cities, with future estimations of this figure rising to 70% by
2050. An increasing amount of waste is being produced in urban
settlements, comprising to a significant extent of household plastic
waste. How can post-consumer plastics recycling in cities be done
best?
Cross-industry collaboration
Cross-industry collaboration is vital for the transition to a
circular economy model. The connection of B2B and B2C industries for
circular economy in a region is therefore of high importance,
especially in high CO2 emitting value chains, such as chemicals
(plastics) and metals. Can you think of business models that enhance
circular economy practices for the plastics and metals value chains
in the transport (vehicles) and consumer goods sectors, and create
win-win solutions for stakeholders in a region of your choice?
De-manufacturing in the ship industry
At present, more than 90% of the global ship breaking takes place in
Asia. Do you have any innovative ideas related to the re-use and
recycling of ship materials that could make this industry profitable
in Europe?
Waste stream manufacturing
On the one hand, 3D printing/additive manufacturing is seen by many
as the future of product development and manufacturing. On the other
hand, increasing amounts of global waste are posing great
environmental and resource management challenges. Could you think of
ways that these can be combined into win-win solutions (for
example, value chains for using waste for 3D printing/additive
manufacturing)?
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4. Decision Metrics and
Finance (DMF)
The Decision metrics and finance theme works to ensure
that decision-makers, investors and high-carbon
consumers are confident and committed to climate action,
unlocking finance and driving the climate-relevant
economy.
The mission is to build integrated competences, models,
tools and mechanisms to provide evidence that can inform
systemic decision-making and realise the full potential
of stakeholders to act against emissions and increase
resilience. To achieve a low carbon future, the
investment needed by 2030 is estimated at €85 trillion an unprecedented level of spend in any human endeavour.
Major challenges involve identifying relevant actions,
prioritising and verifying their impact, and looking
into how to enable investment in these actions.
Climate impact hot topics
Recording and reporting emissions
Reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are not happening fast
enough. Major cities worldwide have to improve city data to enable
them to address air quality issues. There is a need for novel and
affordable methods or technologies for recording and reporting these
emissions for city councils or municipalities.
Decision support tools for urban areas
About half of the global population lives in urban areas. In Europe,
72% of people currently live in towns and cities, but this is
expected to rise to 80% and more until 2020. Europe’s municipalities
and regions face diverse planning and adaptation challenges that can
be informed by solutions exploiting big data. There is a need to
develop decision-support tools to inform these challenges.
Impact standards and assessment
The development of standards or assessment methodologies for
recognising the impact of climate friendly technologies and/or
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services is a growing area to help organisations understand the
carbon footprint throughout their supply chains.
Certification for emissions reporting
Transparent regional-level emissions reporting is increasing.
However, more needs to be done with this data. Cities and regions
are striving for carbon neutrality and need innovative methodologies
and metrics to certify their efforts.
Decision tools for mobility solutions
Local governments need decision support tools for climate-friendly
mobility solutions – informed by accurate, up-to-date data and
information.
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