Klimapionierstadt Wien

Systemic learning, accelerated knowledge transfer and new capacities as well as innovative impulses and the more ambitious design of ongoing activities will help to align the processes of the Vienna City Administration in a way that best supports the achievement of climate neutrality and resilience by 2040. The Klimapionierstadt Wien Partnership also contributes to putting selected pilot neighbourhoods on the path to climate neutrality by 2030.

Short Description

Starting point / motivation

The City of Vienna focuses on actively counteracting the climate crisis in a socially just and holistic manner and on implementing climate adaptation measures beyond the required CO2 reduction in order to maintain the high quality of life for all residents of the city. Therefore, the updated Smart Climate City Wien Strategy was adopted in the 2022 City Council together with the Vienna Climate Roadmap, which contains the most important levers for climate protection and climate adaptation.

In order to make Vienna climate-neutral by 2040, important course must be set in the coming years, especially in the areas of energy supply, buildings and mobility, to gear both the urban infrastructure and private investment decisions towards climate neutrality.

Contents and goals

The city needs to drive forward the climate-friendly realignment of processes, funding and legal instruments through to the implementation of pilot projects. The coming years should be used optimally to test a wide variety of transformation measures, e.g. in the neighbourhood, in order to learn as comprehensively as possible for the accelerated, broad rollout in the coming decade.

The Pioneer City Partnership:

provides momentum to accelerate the path to climate neutrality and strengthen climate governance.
supports further capacity and knowledge building necessary for the broad and faster rollout of climate-impacting measures.
strengthens the alignment of processes/procedures/projects in city administration and urban planning towards the achievement of climate neutrality
• prepares the holistic transformation of existing neighbourhoods towards climate neutrality
• optimises institutional collaboration and communication for citywide implementation of transformation measures
• enables systemic learning and accelerated knowledge transfer (from pilot neighbourhoods) to bring projects to implementation faster

Methods / implementation

To achieve its ambitious climate goals, the City of Vienna has to insert holistic concepts and approaches, in which the employees of the city's departments, businesses and companies, and citizens work together on the transformation.

Four Executive City Councillors

„Finance, Business, Labour, International Affairs and Vienna Public Utilities",
„Housing, Housing Construction, Urban Renewal and Women's Issues",
„Innovation, Urban Planning and Mobility" and
„Climate, Environment, Democracy and Personnel"

support the project, which involves departments from their divisions. "Climate Pioneer City Vienna" is implemented by the Director's Office for Climate Affairs and the Municipal Departments "Urban Development and Planning", "Energy Planning", "Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics" and "Technical Urban Renewal" supported by Urban Innovation Vienna GmbH (UIV), the climate and innovation agency of the City of Vienna.

Expected results

Throughout the Pioneer City Partnership, important insights are to be gained for the large-scale implementation of measures for the energy and mobility transition and the circular economy, including:

Finding intelligent combinations and synergies of solution modules, as well as intertwining the transformation of public with private space: especially with regard to relevant actors and their tasks and interactions, as well as via tested methods of communication internally and externally to citizens
Identifying optimisation needs in terms of duration, timing and coordination of (planning and implementation) processes in order to achieve the overall strategic goals of the City of Vienna
Collecting solution modules and combination possibilities in order to use temporal and spatial synergies in urban redevelopment (temporal, organisational and between the actors)
Establishing Vienna's "ecosystem of transformation" to ensure the best possible interaction between the city's various strategic, implementing and supporting units
Developing a knowledge transfer platform that provides an overview of innovative implementations, supports local actors in implementation at the neighbourhood level, and ensures faster dissemination of RTI results in Vienna by systematically docking relevant RTI projects
Leveraging activities and raising implementation funds to create momentum and trigger investments in pilot neighbourhoods
Establishing climate alliances as a long-term partnership between city organisations and business operators
Strengthening the axis between Austrian pioneer cities in terms of climate fitness and climate neutrality

Project Partners

Project management

Director's Office for Climate Affairs, MA 49, City of Vienna

Contact Address

Director's Office for Climate Affairs
MA 49, City of Vienna
DIin Pia Minixhofer
Rathaus, Stiege 5
A-1082 Wien
Tel.: +43 (1) 4000 49252
E-Mail: pia.minixhofer@wien.gv.at
Web: www.wien.gv.at/umwelt/klimaschutz/

Further projects with the participation of the City of Vienna

GreenDeal4Real - Improving the thermal comfort in mixed-use areas through cost-effective green infrastructure

The aim of the project is to avoid overheating in summer by using innovative greening measures in the mixed residential and commercial area Aspernstraße/Lavaterstraße. The development of a guideline should facilitate the realisation of climate-sensitive projects from strategy to actual implementation and ensure a high degree of transferability to other areas.

Project duration: 2020 - 2025

Climate Hub Vienna - Concept development and preparation of an innovation laboratory to accelerate Vienna's path to climate neutrality

Preparation of an urban innovation laboratory to support decarbonisation in Vienna by 2040. The focus is on systemic innovation and accelerated roll-out of RTI projects through infrastructure, services, networking and the systematic involvement of city administration and users. The innovation lab is intended to strengthen the effectiveness of innovations and the participation of the Viennese in the transformation.

Project duration: 2021 - 2022

GeoDatKlim - Geo Data and Satellite Data for Carbon Neutral Cities

The GeoDatKlim (Geospatial Data for Climate Neutral Cities) innovation lab will help optimize the application of geospatial and satellite data to solve complex urban challenges. The innovation lab serves as a networking platform for administration, science, economy, as well as a development and test environment for innovative use cases.

Project duration: 2021 - 2022

MEIDLINGER "L"-Participatory and scalable climate change adaptations in existing buildings at the intersection of public and private space

The project pursued an integral and interdisciplinary approach to climate change adaptation in existing buildings at the interface between public and private space. A scalable and multipliable model for Vienna and other cities had been developed.

Project duration: 2021 - 2022

F4WM - Fit4WienerMission

Preparation for the EU Urban Mission by updating goals and strategies (Smart City Wien Framework strategy, Climate-Roadmap), developing a manual for climate-neutral Viennese neighbourhoods and concepts for the participation of citizens (Climate Citizens' Council) and businesses (Climate Agreements), as well as a city-internal capacity and structural planning.

Project duration: 2021 - 2022