Projects Archives - Ae4ria

CE Beacons: Balkan Circular and Climate Innovation Beacons

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 14:19:19 +0000

CE Beacons intend to create eco-system services catalyzing systemic circular transition in West Balkans, leaning on systems innovation. These services will be consisted of a redesigned set of frameworks, tools and training methods already successfully implemented in EU, but applicable to WB countries. These services are intended to be sold primarily to business sector for a fee. Such a cross-national ecosystem is demanded by Chambers of Commerce, ministries and the business sector.

The eco-system services intend to: i) establish a CE network on WB and beyond to develop and implement circular innovation in business and policy ii) connect countries through shared circular Vision, Information, Resources and Experience on strategic and operational levels. Iii) nurture shared learning among “Beacons” raising capacity for systemic circular change, iv) work on cross-boarder partnerships to promote place-based hotspots, and v) reduce total negative impacts by changing current market design.

The second year of CE BEACONS is dedicated to

1. reality check for new processes and knowledge,

2. increase of impact

3. creating purposeful systemic networks around CE and

4 pinging the market for demand articulation.

This year we will experiment with our business model, we will make stronger base of CE BEACONS, we will engage with new companies and we will transfer the focus of implementation from Serbia and Romania to Bulgaria and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Finally, we will create first connections with Circular Urban development, involving local governments, and we will create an important research framework on defining the circular innovation urban hotspots, in order to, s be able to recognize and boost circular innovation and raise the bottom-up approach in later years.

Status: Active

Start Date: 01/2021

End Date: 12/2021

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners:

Association Climate KIC, Wuppertal Institute of Climate, Environment and Energy, Cleantech Bulgaria, Timis Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (CCIAT), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, CENTAR ZA CIRKULARNU EKONOMIJU CIREKON d.o.o (Project Leader)

Official Website: Circular Economy Beacons

Το άρθρο CE Beacons: Balkan Circular and Climate Innovation Beacons εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

X-KIC Activities: Cross-KIC Water Scarcity Activities

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 14:15:08 +0000

Good-quality water supply is a prerequisite for economic and social progress, especially in the RIS regions targeted in Southern Europe. In the early stages of the project in 2020, six main challenges to tackle water scarcity were identified:

1- Enabling Agile Water Management, via Digitalization

2- Raising Awareness and Promoting Education

3- Unlocking Water Governance and Financial Schemes

4- Optimizing and Matching Water Supply and Demand

5- Ensuring Better Water Consumption and Production Control to Allow Legal Enforcement.

6- Fostering Climate Change Readiness.

The Cross-KIC RIS project in 2021 aims to build on the knowledge, experiences and results achieved so far in the first year of the program to further tackle these challenges. The project will become the reference as a knowledge-sharing and a capacity building program for innovative companies working to fight against water scarcity in the South of Europe.

Status: Active

Start Date: 01/2021

End Date: 12/2021

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Το άρθρο X-KIC Activities: Cross-KIC Water Scarcity Activities εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

Maritime ClimAccelerator

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 14:07:40 +0000

The Maritime ClimAccelerator, supported by EIT Climate-KIC, through its vast network of collaborators, will offer participating start-ups funding, training, peer to peer coaching and theme-specific mentoring (both virtually and in-person). 30-40 start-ups will be accepted per year and will be asked to provide innovative solutions for the transition to sustainability of the maritime industry, both locally and globally, and will be given the opportunity to present their ideas in front of investors, port authorities and shipping companies. The Maritime ClimAccelerator will thus provide start-ups with a unique opportunity to test, demonstrate and validate their solution.

Cyprus University of Technology, Sustainable Development Unit of ATHENA RC, Fundacion Valenciaport, Digital Hub Logistics Hamburg, Cyprus Energy Agency, Chrysalis LEAP, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Athens Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation – ACEin and UNI.FUND, together with a vast network of collaborators from around the world, are committed in both supporting and developing start-ups and assisting the maritime industry achieve its climate targets.

If you are aligned with our vision and values, and if you would like to support us, please contact us here and we will get back to you soon.

Project Coordinator on behalf of ATHENA RC: Prof. Phoebe Koundouri (Director EIT Climate-KIC Hub Greece and Scientific Responsible of Sustainable Development Unit at ATHENA RC) Team: Lydia Papadaki, Nikos Mavrogiannakis.

Learn more about Maritime ClimAccelerator at: http://maritime-accelerator.org/

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MEDFreeSUP: Single-use plastic free systemic local applications along the Mediterranean east coast, path for a common set of protocols through experiments in Italy, Croatia and Greece

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 14:02:59 +0000

The recent EC directive on single-use plastic products (SUP) requires governments to take action to reduce or ban certain SUP to increase plastic waste prevention (PWP). EIT Climate-KIC portfolio lacks applications of the SUP directive that engage experiments with local government citizens and private operators. In terms of innovation, in Europe cities lack of governance systems to enhance reusable solutions adoption to drive behavior on PWP and abandon SUP products.

Touristic and coastal areas would benefit from a governance system able to target both local communities and tourists, throughout interventions involving foodservice operators, including those located nearby the sea that might impact also on marine littering.

In 2021, the project will focus on consolidating, test and implement the protocol methodology developed in 2021 to reduce and eliminate Single-Use-Plastic items in the beverage industry, based on a co-creation approach involving local authorities, businesses and citizens. The project will also set and implement local experiments proposing alternatives to SUP uses in café/bars, at community level in:

Italy, cities of Emilia-Romagna region, located along the Adriatic coast and of touristic relevance
Greece, the island of Corfu, in the Ionian seas

Status: Active

Start Date: 01/2021

End Date:12/2021

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners: ART-ER , Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Το άρθρο MEDFreeSUP: Single-use plastic free systemic local applications along the Mediterranean east coast, path for a common set of protocols through experiments in Italy, Croatia and Greece εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

Circular Learning Hub (CL-hub): A learning hub for the engagement and ecosystem transition towards circular thinking (phase2)

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:11:18 +0000

Despite alarms on the need to unlock financial capitals to reverse the trend of climate change has been rising for years, humans’ cognitive biases have prevailed. This project works on an awareness-intention-action path fostering problem-owners in the ecosystem to a deeper understanding of circular thinking. On the basis of a debiasing experiment, the co-creation of innovative learning and nudging initiatives on circular thinking and investing will be carried out in 2020.

Based on empirical behavioural economics, firstly we will test on a defined group of investors and entrepreneurs some de-biasing videos specifically designed to overcome the hyperbolic discount bias on one of the priorities for the contrast to the climate change, which is the implementation of circular thinking in the industry production to reduce waste and gas emissions coming from the materials’ processes and the re-orientation of capitals towards circular models. The information collected during the experiment will allow for the co-creation of innovative learning initiative on circular thinking adding to previous pilot experiences that ENEA and AESS realized in 2019 with a particular focus on the construction sector. Nudging initiatives on circular investing will also be co-created and designed to stimulate capital inflows to circular businesses, also supported and endorsed by the active role that CONSOB (the supervisory authority for the Italian financial products market) will play in the project.

The pan-European extension of this project (Italy, Greece and Bulgaria) will also allow for a more effective co-creation of scaled nudging and learning solutions based on the experiences of the different geographical contexts involved. The project will be led by Universita Politecnica Delle Marche (Italy, project coordinator: Mazzolli Camilla) and supported by Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie (Italy), Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile (Italy), Modena Energy and Sustainable Development Agency, Cleantech Bulgaria (Bulgaria, project coordinator: Hamanova Mariyana) and ATHENA RC (Greece).

Project coordinator on behalf of ATHENA RC: Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Status: Completed

Start Date: 01/2020

End Date: 12/2020

Responsible

Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners

Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie, l’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile, Modena Energy and Sustainable Development Agency, Climate Media Factory UG (haftungsbeschrankt), Cleantech Bulgaria, UNIVERSITÁ POLITECNICA DELLE MARCHE

Το άρθρο Circular Learning Hub (CL-hub): A learning hub for the engagement and ecosystem transition towards circular thinking (phase2) εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

SysMa 4 Transition: System Mapping as a Service for post-COVID Regional Transition

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:09:35 +0000

Investments to revive our economies must go beyond a recovery of what existed before COVID-19. To enable regions & cities act upon this challenge and provide the needed long-term economic sustainability a clear map of the system functioning and existing interconnections is needed.

This project is designed to support the scaling-up stage for system mapping services as part of the resilience planning in local community governance to be applied on the most vulnerable and value- added sectors that need to be kept as priorities after COVID-19 (i.e. tourism, food supply, mobility) and address fast recovery objectives. It builds on Transformation, in time and the mission-oriented approach that policy-makers together with private actors need to assume, shaping and creating new markets, focusing on emerging problem-specific societal challenges.

This pan-European project activates communities spread across 10 most vulnerable counties in Southern Europe in the recovery phase to set system mapping as a strategic knowledge intensive service, aimed to provide new indicators and understanding of system and, thereby, supporting local authorities in the needed post-COVID 19 transition and related strategic planning challenges. Through orchestrated co- creation process, a diverse cohort of partners and non-traditional partners from private bodies and civil society, will work with stakeholders & decision makers to generate practice-based knowledge and strategies.

The output is a knowledge management service tool to boost alternatives for challenge-owners in prioritizing economic activities and inform investment in Southern Europe to speed the transition process, aimed at making resilient, healthy communities, recognizing innovations for market and positive transformation. The service provides opportunity for utilization of current and novel unstructured data, not relying solely on historic trends, allowing for path-emergence and systemic decision-making to be applied as a rapid response.

Status: Completed

Start Date: 01/2020

End Date:12/2020

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners:

Climate-KIC Holding BV, Universitat Politècnica de València, Modena Energy and Sustainable Development Agency, Cleantech Bulgaria, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Faculty of Science and Technology, Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency, Malta College of Arts, Science & Technology, ASSOCIATION SEE ICT, The Cyprus Institute

Το άρθρο SysMa 4 Transition: System Mapping as a Service for post-COVID Regional Transition εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

X-KIC Activities: Cross-KIC Water Scarcity Activities

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:07:24 +0000

EIT Climate-KIC has identified – with EIT Food, Raw Materials and Manufacturing – water scarcity as a fundamental topic to work together for the whole southern region development but still being weakly integrated in the current activities, establishing a clear opportunity for collaboration. Through this project, the 4 KICs aim to find innovative solutions to prevent and mitigate water scarcity and drought, as well as the over usage of water, as to move towards a water-efficient and water-saving economy, focusing on raising awareness, learning to save water, and managing the available resources more efficiently. Outreach will cover all Southern European countries, the activities proposed will be focused and delivered across 3 RIS countries (Italy, Greece and Spain). Leveraging on best practices, ensuring efficiency and knowledge sharing, new synergies and opportunities will be established and integrate the system approach to be applied to water scarcity.

Status: Completed

Start Date: 01/2020

End Date: 12/2020

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners: Climate-KIC Holding BV

Το άρθρο X-KIC Activities: Cross-KIC Water Scarcity Activities εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

Deep Demonstrations for Zero-Net Emissions in the port of Piraeus – Frame Phase

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:05:27 +0000

The maritime sector accounts for 90% of global trade and 2.2% of global GHG emissions – a figure projected to increase threefold by 2050. Within the Deep Demonstration for maritime hubs, the port of Piraeus is working with other ambitious partners on land (Port of Valencia) and at sea (Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Shipping) who share a common ambition to create a circular, inclusive, net-zero-emissions maritime sector. The Port of Piraeus and its partners have been carefully selected to reﬂect diﬀerent geographical, economic & social environments and diﬀerent development stage in their environmental strategies and activities.

In 2019 we have set solid foundation by looking at the current state-of-play through a deep understanding of the specificities of the Port of Piraeus -maritime system. This initial step allows us, in a co-design process with the port, to develop a systemic future vision and a transition pathway, setting up the base for the FRAME phase.

In 2020 we will finalize this work by reinforcing the roadmap co-created with the port, and continue to define the field of innovation action needed to reach the port’s vision. We will look for instance at innovations and alternative solutions related to mobility, and in the field of alternative sources of energy and reduction of energy consumption. At the same time the iterative, participative approach taken by this project will allow us, throughout a process of constant building of understanding (involvement of the relevant stakeholders at each steps of the process to provide regular feedback), to explore alternative fields of innovations which might be better suited to ultimately reach the port’s vision.

These steps will allow us in the following years to develop an experiment portfolio, supported by EIT Climate-KIC network, for our prioritized areas to test impactful solutions, support mutual learning and communicate our work to a wider audience, with the aim to replicate similar transformation globally.

The learning objectives are:

– Learning about the system-transformation needed in a maritime hubs in order to reach zero carbon emission

-Learning about the key aspects of the system that need to be transform in order to reach zero carbon emission (where to focus our eﬀort in order to have a greater impact)

-Learning about the opportunities available in terms of innovation in order to reach this system transformation but also the barriers regarding for instance the implementation

-Learning from others DDP maritime hubs from shared experience and best practices throughout the EIT Climate-KIC network.

Status: Completed

Start Date: 03/2020

End Date: 12/2020

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Το άρθρο Deep Demonstrations for Zero-Net Emissions in the port of Piraeus – Frame Phase εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

MEDFreeSUP: Single-use plastic free systemic local applications along the Mediterranean east coast, path for a common set of protocols through experiments in Italy, Croatia and Greece

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 13:03:38 +0000

The project will focus on design and setting innovative experiments at the city level to test the application of incentives to replace SUP products with a proven and monitorable environmental impact, and implementing integrated models of stakeholders’ engagement in three countries along the Mediterranean coast, in:

Italy, cities of Emilia-Romagna region, located along the Adriatic coast and of touristic relevance
Croatia, Cres (County Primorsko-goranska) and Zlarin islands, County Šibenik-Knin
Greece, the island of Corfu, in the Ionian seas and in the Aegean Sea, the island of Ikaria and the municipality of Syros island, part of the very touristy Cyclades islands.

The objective of the project is to set replicable protocols voluntary for free single-use plastics food packaging adoption enforced at the city level, for several types of foodservice operators (FO) (cafes, restaurants, foods stores, hotel, beach facilities). The project will provide FO with an inventory of innovative solutions based at environmental and financial levels. FO and cities will promote the protocol and innovation solutions adopted through a platform to engage consumers in proactive behaviours contributing to the solutions replication.

Status: Active

Start Date: 03/2020

End Date: 12/2021

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners: ART-ER, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Green energy cooperative, Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A

Circular Learning Hub (CL-hub): A learning hub for the engagement and ecosystem transition towards circular thinking (phase1)

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 12:59:58 +0000

Despite alarms on the need to unlock financial capitals to reverse the trend of the climate change has been rising for years, short- sightedness’ of humans seem to prevail. Behavioural economics has shown that humans are aﬀected by a cognitive bias known as hyperbolic discount: we make choices today that our future self would prefer not to have made as we do not correctly perceive problems if they are far in the future.

To create the mindset required to act against the climate change, problemowners in the ecosystem (firms, investors, citizens, policy makers, regulators, universities, industry associations, financial intermediaries, etc.) should become aware of the climate change implications, then they must establish the intention to change their behaviour and finally they must act to make the change. Based on empirical behavioural economics, we will test on a defined group of investors and entrepreneurs some de-biasing videos specifically designed to overcome the hyperbolic discount bias on one of the priorities for the contrast to the climate change, which is the implementation of circular economy (CE) in the industry production. Circular thinking allows to reduce waste and gas emissions coming from the materials’ processes and the re-orientation of capitals towards circular business models. The information we will collect during the experiment will allow for the co-creation of innovative learning initiatives on circular thinking based on previous CE Training Pilot experiences that ENEA and AESS realized in March-April 2019 (see document attached for a synthesis of feedbacks from trainees). In this project a particular focus will be on the buildings industry, connecting the experience from the Build Circular UP project (currently being implemented by Cleantech Bulgaria, CTU (Cyprus) and Paragon (Malta)). The project will step also on a previous educational initiative led by Cleantech Bulgaria in 2018 – Ready2Implement Circular Economy.

The results of the experiment will also allow for the co-creation and design of nudging initiatives addressed to stimulate capital inﬂows into circular business, also supported and endorsed by the active role that CONSOB (the supervisory authority for the Italian financial products market) will play in the project.

The project evolves on an awareness-intention-action path of intervention, the experiment being the learning hub where all problemowners in the ecosystem become unknowingly active members in the mindsets for systems change and embed learning dimensions are included in each step of the experiment (the design, the administration and the co-creation of learning and nudging activities based on the results).

The pan-European extension of this project (Italy, Greece and Bulgaria) will also allow for a more eﬀective co-creation of scaled nudging and learning solutions based on the experiences of the diﬀerent geographical contexts involved.

Project Leader: Mazzoli, C. (Camilla) | UNIVERSITÁ POLITECNICA DELLE MARCHE |

Status: Completed

Start Date: 07/2019

End Date: 12/2019

Responsible: Director Prof. Phoebe Koundouri

Partners: Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie, l’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile, Modena Energy and Sustainable Development Agency, Climate Media Factory UG (haftungsbeschrankt), Cleantech Bulgaria, UNIVERSITÁ POLITECNICA DELLE MARCHE

Το άρθρο Circular Learning Hub (CL-hub): A learning hub for the engagement and ecosystem transition towards circular thinking (phase1) εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.