Lahti presented its personal carbon trading experiment at the EU Green Week in Brussels
Organised in collaboration with the Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology and the Helsinki EU office, the workshop in Brussels was an official partner event of the EU Green Week. The aim of the session was to advance the discussion on designing and implementing the personal carbon trading scheme in Lahti and gather ideas and feedback from international stakeholders interested on the scheme.
The overall goal is to develop the CitiCAP project’s carbon trading scheme in collaboration with international stakeholders, with the intention of also testing the trading scheme in other European cities. Results from the Lahti experiment can be utilised in applying the concept of carbon trading in various cities around the world. Cities can act as forerunners by engaging in such radical experiments and providing incubation space for emergence of new mobility practices.
Encouraging results at the Brussels workshop with international participants
Half of the participants had not heard about personal carbon trade before the session. Nevertheless, all participants agreed that there are either not enough or in any case could be more means for citizen participation in climate action. The idea of incentivizing citizens and providing services in return for reducing their carbon footprint was seen as a good approach in such scheme. Moreover, nearly all perceived PCT as a potential option in their hometown, which shows a growing interest towards such innovative experiments. This is promising as CitiCAP project aims to promote other European cities to join in and establish PCT experiments in their cities. With more cities implementing PCT experiments, valuable knowledge can be gained, simultaneously with raised public awareness and engagement all around Europe. More information about how to become a CitiCAP follower city will be published soon.
Networking among two UIA cities and EU Green Capital 2020 finalists
During the study tour to Ghent, the CitiCAP project team became acquainted with the city’s sustainable mobility solutions and plans, as well as its Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) project called TMaaS - Traffic Management as a Service. We will stay in touch with TMaaS project and see what the options for collaboration between these two are. The project team also gained first-hand experience of Ghent’s cycling infrastructure: they were taken for a guided bike tour to learn about practical measures to promote cycling. The trip was extremely inspiring and the project team gathered a lot of ideas to take back home. Both Lahti and Ghent will be competing in the European Green Capital 2020 finals, to be held in June in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Author: CitiCAP project team
Urban mobility
