Information available to urban planners – such as applicable legal frameworks and relevant policies – are useful to citizens, providing them with a better insight into the planning process and local government decision making. ICLEI is exploring how to use social media and other ICT solutions for better public participation and urban co-creation, and develop new applications together with 3 major European cities. ICLEI will give citizens access to data about their city in an easy to understand way, enabling them to better support the decision-making process.

ICLEI offers a simple and convenient online process for pre-screened installers to compete for city-region bids, making it easier for North American communities to switch to solar energy.

ICLEI conducted Municipal Solid Waste Management Exposure Workshops for more than 100 urban local bodies and strengthened their institutional capacities towards collection, treatment, disposal and efficient management of various types and categories of waste. The project also developed training modules, identified external experts and facilitated site visits for participants from local governments. Five 3-day workshops were conducted at different locations as suggested by the National Institute of Urban Affairs. The workshops and site visits will help the municipal officials to develop an understanding of the commonly faced issues, challenges and constraints of managing municipal solid waste. The capacities of the municipal staff will be built to effectively execute municipal solid waste projects and plans as per the mandate of the revised Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.

ICLEI was chosen as a Technical Advisor in 2019 to support the communities’ efforts to achieve SolSmart designation with the aims of improving the business climate for solar energy and providing official recognition that a municipality is “open for solar business.” The process began in January 2019 with training on SolSmart requirements through a series of web group sessions and one-on-one technical calls. Most ICLEI-assisted SolSmart communities achieved the Bronze-level recognition by the end of November that year. The adjustments needed in documentation and business practices often required coordination between community departments (e.g., Sustainability Office, Planning, Zoning, Information Systems, Fire and Rescue, and Tax) which added some time burden but also built beneficial cohesion. Training was required for building departments, permitting staff and others. Approvals of the changes sometimes required formal action by the City Council, Zoning Board and Planning Board; and the approval protocol process added time.

ICLEI provides detailed guidance and practice-oriented resources to technical staff through an open access, online, low emission development platform. The Solutions Gateway is an online resource platform for local and regional governments where they will be able to find relevant Low Emissions Development (LED) Solutions for their cities. The platform contains sectoral and cross-sectoral packages of activities, structured along local government responsibilities and spheres of influence, to support cities in the development of low-emission strategies, plans, and projects. The Solutions Gateway contents are based on proven technologies and practices, distilled into Solutions and Solution Packages which are drafted and peer-reviewed by experts of the respective field.

SOLUTIONSplus is coordinated by the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI) and joined by 45 worldwide partners. The project aims to enable transformational change towards sustainable urban mobility through innovative and integrated electric mobility solutions.

Project cities will be able to demonstrate different types of innovative and integrated e-mobility solutions, complemented by a comprehensive toolbox, capacity development and replication activities. SOLUTIONSplus works closely with the UN Environment and the International Energy Agency (IEA) on a joint global urban e-mobility program that will significantly boost replication and impact of this innovation action.

ICLEI Europes task within this activity is to validate, enrich and share SONNET results, maximising their exploitation and impact, drawing upon a well-designed knowledge brokerage and co-creation process within and beyond the project. It implements cutting edge dissemination processes to maximize SONNET’s impact by engaging a variety of key stakeholders at local, regional, national and European levels, drawing on insights derived from the different workpackages. SONNET utilizes multiple channels and formats (incl. social media, regional workshops, briefs for practitioners,
infographics, videos) to disseminate its findings to all relevant stakeholders.
Specific objectives of ICLEI Europe are:
– Coordination of the co-creation and dissemination process
– Translating SONNET’s results into actionable recommendations for policy makers
– Development and dissemination of novel and cutting-edge scientific knowledge

The SPIPA program supports our efforts within Australia and seeks to explore alignment and synergies with other national and subnational programs and offer a unified climate action methodology and reporting structure. The SPIPA Initiative provides a final report that may be used as a pathway for partnership describing the various roles of stakeholders and the possible role they could take in governance, leadership, program development, support, advocacy, funding and technical capacity related to the Global Covenant of Mayors. ICLEI Oceania has completed the consultation and development of strategic reports for direction setting. This has provided the pathway

SPP Regions promoted the creation and expansion of European regional networks of municipalities working together on sustainable public procurement (SPP) and public procurement of innovation (PPI). The regional networks help increase the capacity of public bodies for SPP and PPI, and send a stronger signal of demand for sustainability to suppliers. They provide support, improve skills and increase regional impact.

ICLEI supported the establishment of new procurement networks in 8 European regions. All participating networks implemented eco-innovative tenders achieving significant CO2 savings, which ICLEI supported through an intensive capacity building program. The project has produced a series of reports and guidance on sustainable procurement, including four key SPP and PPI topics: market engagement, life cycle costing, output or performance-based specifications, and circular procurement. The series of “”eco-innovative”” was published as guidance material as well. The project has also produced “”how-to”” videos on various aspects of sustainable procurement.

In this H2020 project, ICLEI is involved in the following tasks:
1. Desktop research in order to understand mobility cultures and mobility styles.
This has been done by doing qualitative desktop research, examining empirical evidence focusing on Eastern European countries to understand the car sharing diffusion in these countries.
ICLEI focused on understanding how new mobility car sharing cultures could emerge in a context where the penetration of cush services is not very high (Eastern European countries)
2. ICLEI is involved in developing a toolbox to help decision-makers integrate car sharing into SUMPs. This is an ongoing activity and the toolbox will be tested in February 2020.
3. ICLEI established a group of 7 Uptake cities that are following the project, understanding the STARS results and as a final result they will write 1-2 page document on how they would implement car sharing scheme in their city. ICLEI organised webinars and workshops.
4. Large role ICLEI has in organising two dissemination workshops.