Mayors and delegates from a number of European cities and industry leaders gathered in Stockholm today (10 February 2015) to mark the launch of a new 25 million euro project, GrowSmarter, designed to shorten the path towards a more sustainable and environmentally smarter Europe, and expected to create up to 1,500 new jobs.
Opening the launch, Karin Wanngård, the Mayor of Stockholm, said: “It´s a great honour for Stockholm to be part of GrowSmarter and we are proud to be a Lighthouse City within the project. GrowSmarter holds a huge potential to create and spread new ideas enabling cities to develop in a social, environmental and economic sustainable way, in addition to creating new jobs.
GrowSmarter is a role model when it comes to organising future cities – working together to reduce environmental impact, strengthen local growth and improving city life. We expect that by 2050, more than 6 billion people will live in urban areas. This trend requires some rethinking in cities – we need to think smart. We are hugely excited to be a GrowSmarter city!
Stockholm, Cologne and Barcelona will act as ‘lighthouse cities’ within the project, implementing 12 smart city solutions: from advanced information and communication technology and better connected urban mobility, to energy efficiency. The solutions will be rolled out in a number of city areas, including downtown districts, suburban and industrial areas, ensuring a sample base representative of European cities.
Five ‘follower cities’ Cork, Graz, Malta, Porto and Suceava will work in close partnership with the ‘lighthouse cities’ to learn from their experiences, and provide a market for solutions suitable for their specific local context.
Project coordinator Gustaf Landahl, from the city of Stockholm says: “The GrowSmarter project aims to show the benefits of public and private sector partners working together to stimulate the smart city economy.”
The idea behind GrowSmarter is to create jobs and provide a boost for a smarter more sustainable Europe by showcasing innovative, intelligent practices and technology in real life scenarios, so that other cities can learn from our experiences and think, yes this is something we can do too.”
Spearheaded by a team of European partners, including ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, environmental technology partners, and local authorities, the project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme and will run for five years.
To find out more information, please visit www.grow-smarter.eu