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Summer School Energy Transition in a Fossil World

July 2019 – Combining social, technological and economic perspectives is required for successful change. In July 2019, SPA Sustainability organised the Summer Course “Energy Transition in a Fossil World” for the IVM Institute for Environmental Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In lectures, excursions and interactive sessions, a large number of expert speakers introduced the students in a nutshell to all key aspects of a successful global energy transition. The course was attended by bachelor and master students as well as energy professionals from all over the world and very positively evaluated: “The knowledge that I got is much more than what I expected before I came. Technology, Economics, and Politics, all of them are covered in just two weeks program – unbelievable but true.” The Summer Course will be organised again in July 2020. Read more

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ClairCity – Citizen-inclusive local sustainability policies in Europe

January 2019 – Citizens need to be at the heart of sustainability policy making in cities. Air quality and climate policies will require huge changes in European cities in the coming years. In the Horizon2020 project ‘ClairCity’, it is investigated in six European cities and regions (Amsterdam, Bristol, Ljubljana, Aveiro, Genoa and Sosnowiec) what current and preferred future behavioural practices of citizens can be used as a basis for such policies. Also, citizens are asked for their own preferences regarding future policies and local policy makers are given the opportunity to react to these proposals. In a final stage of the project, the effects of the unified citizen and policy maker proposals are modelled. The project shows that the pace of planned change is very important: in some cities, citizens seem ahead of policy makers, in others policy makers seem more ambitious than citizens. The project is carried out with partner Trinomics and 15 other consortium members all over Europe. Read more