Connected Urban Development

Following from the Cities in Action for Climate Change publication, Cisco and Metropolis, the global cities association, in partnership with the Connected Urban Development partnership has developed a survey that researches the role of urban innovation for sustainability in global cities.

In Autumn of 2009, the membership of Metropolis and the Connected Urban Development community contributed to the Urban Innovation for Sustainability survey. The survey seeks information about the top priorities of municipal leaders around the world and their efforts to create more sustainable cities. The survey is part of a research project that explores the challenges cities face; how city leaders introduce innovations; where cities are today in their quest to be more sustainable; and how city leaders perceive the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in fostering greater sustainability.

In summary, the study uncovered several important themes that should inform the work of the CUD community, the Metropolis Partnership for Urban Innovation Commission and Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities programs in coming years:
1.       For cities, sustainability is first and foremost about the environment, but economic development and social inclusion also are crucial priorities of the wider urban sustainability agenda.
2.       “Livability” is the watchword in municipalities’ sustainability efforts, with a clear focus on climate change mitigation.
3.       Local governments are actively driving the push for more sustainable cities, marshalling resources to address the problem, orchestrating the input of the private sector and community groups, and leading by example in urban innovation initiatives, even in the face of obvious funding challenges.
4.       ICT is recognized as a vital contributor to urban innovation—and, therefore, to sustainability—in cities.

This builds from the publication, Cities in Action for Climate Change, which sets out the actions which cities are currently taking towards applying innovative approaches of technology to enable sustainable cities.

This survey takes a forward looking perspective on the priorities, plans and attitudes of global cities.

Both publications can be accessed on the Connected Urban Development and Metropolis websites.

In partnership with Metropolis, the global cities association, Cisco and the Connected Urban Development partnership have developed a publication, Cities in Action for Climate Change, that sets out the extent of actions which cities take towards applying innovative applications of technology to enable sustainable cities.

This publication by the Metropolis International Institute and Cisco, provides an overview of what some of the most insightful cities have been doing over the last few years to address climate change with concrete solutions. These span Metropolis member cities, those in the Connected Urban Development program, and other proactive and innovative cities across the world.

With an introduction by Metropolis and Cisco, the publication is intended as a repository of publically available information on sustainability programs by cities across the world. Cities in Action for Climate Change is intended to serve as insight and inspiration into the wide ranging and innovative approaches being taken by cities off various sizes, geographies, and cultures to respond to their local sustainability imperatives, and to highlight the global leadership being taken by cities to respond to global climate change challenges.

This publication complements the forward looking survey of global cities, Urban Innovation for Sustainability, also published at this time.

Both publications can be accessed on the Connected Urban Development and Metropolis websites.

Advancing the Connected Urban Development program’s progress in Connected and Sustainable Living through buildings and energy efficiency applications, the city of Madrid, in partnership with Cisco and technology partner Telvent, has announced the launch of the UrbanEnergy Management pilot project in the city.

Promoted by the Municipal Company for Housing and Lands of Madrid; Cisco, and technology partner Telvent, has deployed network infrastructure, connectivity and control systems in a pilot, apartment building in the city: Calle de Las Margaritas, 52. The development is intended as temporary housing on a rental basis to young people in Madrid.

The “Energy Efficiency Manager” installed in homes, can, at any time and in real time, manage energy consumption, controlling emissions of carbon dioxide and make decisions about the way in which residents make use of energy both at the individual apartment level and throughout the building. In the future this is intended to extend across the urban community.

The solution, which allows consumer to set limits and comparisons of consumer weekly, monthly or yearly, provides to citizens and municipal managers, daily tips to improve efficiency and be more environmentally responsible.

Further details can be found on the projects section of the CUD website, where a fact sheet and presentation sets out further details of the pilot solution and roadmap.

Cisco and the city of Amsterdam today announced the rollout of Urban EcoMap, an Internet-based tool that enables cities around the world to provide smarter climate change information for their citizens. A city can use Urban EcoMap to create awareness among its residents of the impact of carbon emissions on their urban environment. It provides information on carbon emissions from transportation, energy and waste among neighborhoods, organized by district, and delivers tips on ways to reduce a resident’s carbon footprint.

• The application is an extension of the Urban EcoMap launched in May 2009 in the city of San Francisco. The Amsterdam version of the Urban EcoMap will be progressively expanded over the next six months with real-time information that is linked to data from other agencies.

• Urban EcoMap provides information on carbon emissions from transportation, energy and waste among neighborhoods, organized by district. As part of the Cisco® Connected Urban Development (CUD) program, the Urban EcoMap pilot is a cooperative initiative between the city of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM) and Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), the company’s strategic global consulting arm.
• The application now enables comparisons between the two cities of Amsterdam and San Francisco, on an aggregated residential per capita CO2 basis, and proportionally by the categories of Transportation, Energy and Waste.

Join us in the drive towards reducing our individual CO2 emissions to 2 tonnes by 2050, across the world.

This is the next step in the development of the application. Let us know your thoughts and ideas on how the application can develop and continue to innovate and scale globally.

Cisco and the CUD partner cities have engaged The Climate Group to launch the CUD Alliance, which aims to create a sustainable program to deliver integrated, ICT-enabled urban climate-change solutions.The Climate Group and Cisco have established the CUD Alliance to extend the reach of the CUD community to additional public- and private-sector partners from around the world.The CUD Alliance will build on the success of CUD, The Climate Group’s city focus and the recommendations of the SMART2020 report, to create a forum for the development of globally relevant demonstration programs. The programs will focus on delivering low-carbon solutions through systems integration, policy and financing.

The CUD Alliance will concentrate on three main areas;- Developing new partnerships to implement pilot projects at the city level,

- Creating a platform to encourage common ICT standards for low-carbon urban solutions, - Scaling existing projects and resources across a growing number of world cities to reduce carbon emissions.The Climate Group and the CUD partners are engaged in a wide range of technology based urban projects. We encourage other cities and companies to the CUD Alliance, to contribute and drive the agenda, as we aim to further expand on the innovation, scaling and new connected and sustainable models of living in cities.See the news release for further details at: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_092409b.html.

Two global conferences have converged on Seoul, South Korea this week to address the challenges of climate change, and what approaches can be taken to address the sustainability objectives for governments, citizens and businesses across the world.

Starting on Monday 18th May the C40 group of global cities opened the C40 Seoul Summit, and the Climate Change Expo and conference, bringing city mayors, and policy makers together to discuss the challenges and imperatives for cities in the 21st century.

Starting on the 21st, our own Connected Urban Development global conference brings together thought leaders and practitioners from cities, urban planning, businesses, and academia, to hear from the global cities in the CUD program on their innovative proof of concept pilots. Also a distinguished list of speakers and invited delegates will discuss the role that technology can play towards connected and sustainable cities.

Speakers include executives from the city of Seoul; Duksoo Lee, Vice Mayor of Seoul; Sangbum Kim, Deputy Mayor for City Transportation; from the South Korean government, Sung-il Park, Director General of the Korean Informatization Strategy Office; David Miller, Mayor of Toronto and C40 Chairman; Christine Loh, from Hong Kong based Civic Exchange, and executives from Cisco, Arup, Gale International, and NASA.

Wim Elfrink, Cisco’s Chief Globalisation Officer will provide a live demo of technology solutions which enable the move to smart and connected cities. Jonathan Thorpe, EVP of Gale International, and Volker Buscher from ARUP will provide insights into the practitioners perpectives on the future of connected and sustainable cities.

The conference will be joined via TelePresence live from Seattle by Lord Stern, author of ‘The Economics of Climate Change’. He will participate in a Q&A session led by the impactful report’s co-author Dimitri Zenghelis, live at the conference.

Also leading academic insights will include those from Prof. Wu, Tongji University, China; Dr. Carlo Ratti from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Prof. Ludger Hovestadt from EVH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology).

Video addresses by Clinton Global Initiative founder and ex-US President Bill Clinton, and Job Cohen, Mayor of Amsterdam will provide the political and global support to the cities in the Connected Urban Development program, as the cities present their progress in their commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, and to the CUD community that are focused on proof of concept technology innovations that provide actionable, and tangible approaches to sustainability.

The conference sessions will look at; the Connected and SENSEable City, Urban and planetary sensing networks, the future for sustainable and low carbon urban planning and city services, and the mobility innovations of the city of Seoul and other cities in the CUD program.

Breakout sessions on Connected and sustainable work; living; mobility; plus, urban modelling and services will hear from the global CUD community and other leading global perspectives.

On the second day the 200 invited delegates of thought leaders from cities, urban planning, business and academia from over 25 countries will engage in a ‘Connected and Sustainable socioeconomic challenge’. Drawing from the delegates insights, the conference will address the role and imperatives for cities towards; governance in a carbon economy; green and digital economic stimulus; and 21st century cities.

The conference will conclude, after this discussion with a summary of these challenge discussions, and closing comments by Simon Willis, VP of Cisco Public Sector, and Nicola Villa the Global Director for CUD at Cisco.

Refer back here for updates from the proceedings of the two days.

Shane Mitchell

A number of the technology pilots, which the seven Connected Urban Development cities have been developing, will be presented at the third Connected Urban Development global conference on May 21-22, 2009.

The conference, in Seoul, South Korea will see the launch to the citizens of the city, of the Personal Travel Assistant (PTA) application. ‘Seoul PTA’ is a web-based service providing the following facilities; Personal Travel Planner, Carbon Calculator, Real-Time Router, Transportation Information Service.

Initially, Seoul PTA will serve the Jung-gu and Jongno-gu districts of Seoul; citywide coverage will roll out later in the year.

In addition, the Urban EcoMap application, previewed on EarthDay will be launched to the citizens of San Francisco. During the two days of the conference, further connected and sustainable mobility and smart work solutions will be discussed with delegates, such as the Smart Transportation Pricing pilot in the city of Seoul, the development of Amsterdam PTA, and the scaling of the Smart Work Center concept globally.

Great progress has been made in these programs and in the areas of Energy and Buildings. Providing informed, and control enabled applications to the home, buildings, and integrated into the energy grid provides great opportunities for connect and sustainable living for citizens and businesses in cities.

The city of Madrid will present the latest progress in the implementation of the ‘Urban Energy Management’ pilot for homes, and residential communities.

In the city of Lisbon, the ‘Smart UrbanEnergy for Schools’ pilot provides an innovative perspective on Energy management in municipally owned buildings, with two way integration with the energy grid. This pilot also has an educational aspect for students to learn about sustainable living, enabled by technology.

With the PTA application, the Urban EcoMap, and the energy applications, the CUD community is progressing towards an integrated urban services platform for connected and sustainable cities. These pilots, and many other projects and perspectives from other leading global cities, expert urban planners, business, and academic thought leaders will be presented and debated at the conference.

A commentary of the proceedings and highlights will follow during and after the event here on this blog.

Shane Mitchell

During EarthDay, the Urban EcoMap provided a number of commentaries, from Cisco, the City and County of San Francisco, citizens of the city, and other media outlets:

Quotes:

“Urban EcoMap in San Francisco provides residents, businesses and our city as a whole with much-needed tools to reduce our carbon footprint. With our city’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012, we are pleased - and think it’s apropos - that Cisco selected San Francisco as the first city in the world to launch Urban EcoMap.” - Gavin Newsom, Mayor, City and County of San Francisco

“Because cities produce 80 percent of GHG emissions worldwide, they present the largest opportunity for innovation and social behavior changes. Citizens want to see the collective results of their individual climate-change actions.” - Simon Willis, vice president, global public sector, Cisco IBSG

Feature articles:

Zapping Greenhouse Gases, One Zip Code at a Time

The Environmentally Conscious City by the Bay

Video Blogs: by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Nicola Villa from Cisco IBSG.

Return to www.urbanecomap.org on the 21st May. In the lead in to then, join the online discussion there, on Twitter, Facebook and The Connected Republic.

In addition, the following media commented on the EcoMap during the day;

22nd April 2009,

Cisco Launches Carbon Emissions Map, First In San Francisco Earth2Tech

Web site to track SF green neighborhoods ABC News

Cisco, San Francisco launch Urban EcoMap San Jose Business Journal

Cisco’s “EcoMap” To Give San Franciscans Carbon Footprint Bragging Rights, Guilt Trips GreenTechMedia

 Net tool tracks carbon footprint by ZIP code San Francisco Chronicle

Cities create 80% of global carbon emissions. As we move from educating people about climate change to taking action to mitigate climate impacts, we need innovation to help spur a shift to climate-friendly social behavior in cities. Urban EcoMap helps address this objective. Begun in fall 2008, this pilot project is a collaborative effort involving Cisco and the City and County of San Francisco.

San Francisco is the first city worldwide to introduce the Urban EcoMap. On Earth Day 2009 (22 April), Mayor Gavin Newsom launched the Urban EcoMap pilot in San Francisco. The web-based tool will will be made available to the general public at the Connected Urban Development conference in Seoul, 21st May 2009.

Please view the demonstration of the Urban EcoMap San Francisco at www.urbanecomap.org. The conversation will continue on the website blog, twitter, and facebook. Return there for the latest information as the public go-live day for the web-based Urban EcoMap approaches.

The visual preview is also included here in the program page of the Connected Urban Development community website. Go to: http://www.connectedurbandevelopment.org/connected_and_sustainable_ict_infrastructure/eco_map

Shane Mitchell

The third Connected Urban Development global conference is forthcoming in Seoul, South Korea on May 21-22 May. Barely half a year after the successful CUD Global Conference in Amsterdam, preparations for the next edition of the world summit are in full swing. The main theme of this edition of the CUD Conference will be ‘Connecting Cities for Sustainable Living: An Urban Revolution’. The theme is an important one for the host city: Seoul is leading the world in developing high-end broadband deployment for all, households, schools, businesses and public sector included.Among others, the conference serves to examine whether and how such a pervasive broadband environment will prove a fundamental ingredient to intelligent approaches in redirecting our urban society towards a more sustainable way of living, working, learning and transporting. One of the highlights of the conference will be Seoul’s mobility revolution, and the progress the city has made in advancing technology integration through its participation in the CUD program’s proof of concept pilots.The conference will focus in-depth on all CUD program areas, including Connected and Sustainable Work, Mobility, Smart Living, Energy Solutions and the Socio-Economic imperatives. For a full overview of the agenda please visit the event website.