CITYGovernance - Adjustments in the innovation ecosystem around regulatory framework conditions

Status

ongoing

Starting point / motivation

With initiatives such as "Smart Cities" and "Pioneer Cities" within the framework of national and EU projects Austria has already taken an important step to promote and strengthen the innovative power of cities to achieve climate neutrality. Adjustments and changes to the regulatory framework to further advance this transformation process are the next logical step towards achieving this goal by 2040.

Today more than ever, urban politics and administration act in the conflict area between legal and financial requirements from the federal and state governments, the needs and expectations of their residents and local businesses. Different superordinate levels determine many of the current and future framework conditions for achieving (urban) climate neutrality. Taking all these - often contradictory - interests and requirements into account, today cities are facing a big challenge to meet all these requirements.

Contents and goals

In the central areas of energy, buildings/refurbishment and mobility, the project will identify the essential overarching governance and regulations that promote inhibit or even prevent climate neutrality in cities, systematically process them in their entirety and present them clearly in graphic form. Due to the dynamics and constant changes in legislation, but also in the requirements, this system should be set up in such a way that it can be flexibly adapted and supplemented for future developments.

The identified (cumulative) barriers, obstacles and potentials for the system are also placed in a spatial and temporal dimension as far as possible. This means which governance level can implement which measures or reduce barriers with which time effort, which measures already have a broad acceptance, etc. The temporal reference here refers primarily to the timeframe of the measures, the "maturity", the already existing progress and necessary scope of the actions to be taken.

With the help of national and international research as well as expert interviews, existing strategies, and regulations in the field of climate-neutral cities as well as international case studies are identified. Based on this, barriers and obstacles in the complex interplay of framework conditions will be uncovered and solutions developed.

Methods

A regional, national and international desktop research and analysis of existing norms and regulatory framework conditions are carried out by the project team. Focusing on their genesis from strategies to concrete regulation in the context of "achieving the goal of climate neutrality of cities", especially in the areas of energy and building (renovation) as well as mobility. The identification of supportive framework conditions in other cities is carried out based on the analysis of international best practice examples whose objectives, achievements, methodology and involvement of the economy and the population in the change process are examined with regard to their transferability to Austria. Relevant stakeholders and experts will be involved in the project through interactive workshops, interviews and surveys in order to achieve a broad consensus for the results and recommendations for action.

Expected results

The synthesis of the project findings is the publishable study with a graphical representation of the identified overarching governance such as regulatory provisions, with different dimensions (e.g.: urgency, possibility of implementation in time) and recommendations for action derived from this for the adaptation of the current framework conditions.

Project management

• Innovation Lab RENOWAVE.AT
  DI Susanne Formanek

Project or cooperation partners

• ConPlusUltra GmbH
  Mag. Harald Grill

RENOWAVE.AT eG
Mariahilfer Straße 89/22
A-1060 Vienna
Phone: +43 664 4279782
E-Mail: office@renowave.at
Website: www.renowave.at