Climate-friendly construction could be less costly than first thought, according to a new report, with some measures adding little or no cost.  Mission cities are learning from Oslo how this could be encouraged through public procurement. Sofi Halling, a senior adviser at Oslo Climate Agency, explains.  The construction sector is an “often overlooked” source of cities’ greenhouse gas emissions, but the good news is that cutting emissions in this sector might be less costly than anticipated, according to a report by SINTEF, a Norwegian research institute for sustainable development.  “This report shows that smarter design, the right choice of materials and increased re-use of material can cut emissions faster than many think,” says Audun Garberg, acting [...]

Collaboration promises to pool resources and spread expertise – but first everyone has to be put in the same room. The EU Cities Mission is doing just that and bringing cities, national governments and other important sectors together in a regular and shared forum. Ahead of recent municipal elections, it was the turn of the French ‘ecosystem’ to meet on key topics of finance and governance. By Marion Gonzales Offering collaborative spaces to tackle shared challenges is one of the key value propositions of the EU Cities Mission – and financing climate action is a hot [...]

Prague, Marmaris, and Valongo are separated by thousands of kilometres but have common sustainability and climate problems. To gain insight on energy projects, nature-based solutions, transport, and more, they met with counterparts in Bucharest District 2 to hear what the city is doing in these areas and – since no city has all the answers – to offer their own insights. By Alan MacKenzie  What’s the best route to a place no one has been before? It’s not a trick question, but one that ambitious cities are asking themselves every day. As they work to decarbonise and bring citizens and stakeholders with them, there will be as many [...]

Since opening its first roastery in Torino in 1895, the company founded by Luigi Lavazza has become a global coffee brand. Happily for the city, it has kept its roots there – and signed up to its climate neutrality plan. Lavazza’s director of global sustainability answered some questions for NetZeroCities about its own sustainability priorities.  By Alan MacKenzie  For any city’s progress and success on climate, the support of citizens and stakeholders, including private business, is non-negotiable. This support not only legitimises city plans but stakeholders will bring key insights and ideas for proper local transformation that will include their own emissions and relevant behaviours.   “Since the beginning of its journey toward climate neutrality, Torino has created a framework that allows all local stakeholders – private and public, profit and non-profit – to have [...]

Our societies aren’t short of information, but does everyone have the simple and trustworthy info they need to take action on climate and energy? To solve this in Bergamo, the city launched Energia in Comune, a helpdesk service where locals can get face-to-face guidance from experts. The helpdesk team tells us more on the NetZeroCities blog.  Citizens and businesses are often confronted with difficult questions: how to reduce energy consumption, which incentives apply, whether photovoltaic systems are feasible, or how to participate in energy communities. Without clear guidance, even the most motivated citizens can struggle to move forward.  Bergamo has already laid strong foundations for climate action through its Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (PAESC) and the Climate Transition Strategy Cli.c Bergamo. Yet, like many cities, it [...]

Working in networks is widely promoted in public policy, urban innovation, and climate action – but too often, they create more meetings than results and more expectations than impact. NetZeroCities partners at the Technical University of Madrid offer a method to rethink how to get the most from networks. In highly complex environments, real innovation is not about doing more, but about working together better. But why do networks – a necessity for urban transformation – sometimes fail? Building a network is not just about adding people or organisations or even making sure they talk to each other. It’s a [...]

Funding for cities is changing while their responsibilities are increasing – but to shape this change, cities must take part in the process now, says Natalia Lewandowska from NetZeroCities’ partners ICLEI Europe. Recent experience in Poland can show them how.  As the European Union moves closer to defining its next long-term budget one thing is becoming clear: the rules of the game are changing. For cities where climate action is implemented, tested, and scaled, the coming years will require not only new projects, but a fundamentally new mindset around funding.  Against this backdrop, a Better Funding Dialogue (BFD) in Poland offered a structured process to help cities, ministries, [...]

Working within the EU Cities Mission requires both operations and innovation – but teams can get stuck on only one and miss the complementary benefits of the other. To help them overcome this familiar problem, NetZeroCities partners from the Technical University of Madrid introduce a method to examine and redirect their activities. During a rainy spring in Spain in 2025, players from central and city government, business, academia and other institutions were coming together to advance an ambitious goal and speed up building renovations on a large scale. But they met a familiar constraint: responsibilities and [...]

Research increasingly shows that energy and resource efficiency and technological innovation alone cannot solve our climate and environmental crises. Major actors like the IPCC and the EU Horizon Programme are therefore turning their eyes towards how resource demand can be reduced, while ensuring that everyone’s needs are met. A new NetZeroCities report by partner Demos Helsinki takes a deeper look at what sufficiency policy could mean for cities, especially when it comes to housing, mobility and food.   ‘Sufficiency’ has gained attention in recent years as a way of decreasing emissions and reducing environmental footprints while securing sustainable wellbeing for all.   A key takeaway of our report is that sufficiency offers cities a necessary complement to efficiency and technological innovation. Adopting sufficiency principles can guide cities to design fair and effective [...]