Starting as We Mean to Go On

New ways of working

When the 7 cities that are part of the Zero Carbon Cities Action Planning Network last met in person, in Manchester and January, we were looking forward to starting the project properly with a visit to Frankfurt in July. 

Of course, since then the world has changed, and we moved our meeting online, using the Zoom platform to curate two days of online presentations and discussions, facilitated by our lead expert, Ian Turner of EnergyCities.

We’d been impressed by the format used by URBACT for their network training – namely two days of 2 x two hour blocks – and we emulated this for the ZCC kick off meeting, with a focus very much on participation rather than presentation!

Behind the scenes our team were keeping the show on the road, and moving colleagues in between different “break out rooms” as required, as well as providing a Manchester music soundtrack for those comfort breaks we’d scheduled. 

With participants from across Europe, we had three different time zones represented, with colleagues from Tartu and Bistrita two hours ahead of Manchester.  On the plus side, none of us had a long journey to the meeting, with the majority of people currently working from home.

Using Science-based targets to help cities transition to zero carbon

Zero Carbon Cities is about using science-based targets to help cities with their transition to zero carbon, but having already presented extensively on the methodology during Phase 1, we wanted to maximise the use of these two days to share where each city was up to, and better understand their ambitions for the next two years working on setting up their URBACT local group and on their Integrated Action Plan.

So Day 1 was very much about ensuring everyone understood what the project expectations were, whilst Day 2 gave us an opportunity to co-create a range of transnational activities. Because we are aiming towards zero carbon in our cities, we were already conserving our carbon footprint, through a smaller, more focused number of transnational meetings, enhanced by online – and obviously the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated that process. That said, we know the value of meeting in person, and hope we will be able to again in 2021.

One of the strengths of the 7 cities in Zero Carbon Cities is that they already had plans to be examplars for their carbon reduction plans – with political buy-in, strongly committed leaders within their administrations, and a track record in projects that engage with citizens and business. The Phase 2 kick off meeting gave us the opportunity to meet some new colleagues as well as the project coordinators in each city.

Over the next few months we’ll be sharing good practice from the 7 cities so you can get to know them better – and keeping you informed about our progress as a network.