A major, albeit underestimated, by-product of urbanization is the exponential increase of human exposure to artificial light. Outdoor illumination, artificial sky glow, domestic lighting, light-emitting screens, etc. entrain circadian clock. Despite scientific evidence on the pathogenic role of circadian rhythms disruption in predisposing to NCDs, affecting sleep, metabolism, immune function and many aspects of behavior and mood, EU cities are mostly focusing on improving lighting services’ efficiency, reducing costs and emissions, but failing to consider lighting impacts on health and wellbeing. Through an open-online Urban Lighting and Health Atlas, ENLIGHTENme will collect and systematize existing data and good practices on urban lighting and will perform an accurate study on the correlations among health, wellbeing, lighting and socio-economic factors in 3 pilot cities -Amsterdam, Bologna and Tartu, where a target district will be selected due to its exposure to artificial light and to reflect social inequalities. Through the establishment of Lighting Urban Labs within the district, citizens and stakeholders will co-create innovative Lighting Urban Plans measures and define the implementation of a smart outdoor lighting system and indoor lighting changes in a pilot area within the district. There, a population-based study on elderly – addressed as a vulnerable group particularly prone to suffer circadian misalignment – will allow to assess lighting-dependent risks on mental and health conditions and surveys involving the overall district population and users will allow assess the impacts of urban lighting on quality of life and wellbeing. The results will allow to develop a dedicated Decision Support System and guidelines and recommendation on the impact of lighting on health and wellbeing, proposing innovative lighting policies, measures, technologies and interventions aiming at improving citizens’ health and wellbeing in cities. ENLIGHTENme is a part of the European Cluster on Urban Health.

NEMO aims to create a turn-key solution through which new systems are integrated into existing infrastructure to empirically measure emissions and noise emitted by individual vehicles. The new measurement systems, together with the implementation of new mitigation solutions, form a global and scalable solution to improve air quality and reduce noise impact in EU cities. By the envisaged standardization, the systems will represent an instrument for enforcement against high-emitters in Low-Emission Zones and other sensitive areas. The first dimension comprises a new and enhanced autonomous remote sensing system that identifies noisy and polluting vehicles in existing traffic and make this information available to tolling or access systems. The system can be fully integrated into the road/rail infrastructure and will have the tools available to communicate with the existing data structure of both vehicle/train operators and road/rail authorities. The second dimension develops a holistic solution to mitigate noise and emissions of passing vehicles. This integral approach involves road texture optimization, green barriers, photocatalytic materials and microplastics collection in the asphalt layer pore network. The combined effect of dimensions 1 and 2 will achieve the targeted 30% improvement in air quality for road traffic and will exceed the targeted 20% improvement in noise. For rail traffic, NEMO will enable the acoustic determination and identification of individual wagons in passing trains. This improves the effectivity of tolling or banning policies for noisy cast iron block braked wagons. The NEMO consortium covers all the relevant technologies at already quite high readiness level and incorporates extensive experiences in the application and interpretation of vehicles’ noise and emission monitoring. The performance of the developed systems will be demonstrated, analysed and disseminated in four pilots (two for road, one for rail and one for shipping).

A main objective of the RoundBaltic project is to provide framework and catalyst for energy efficiency investments, incl. creating dialogue and enabling actions around the Smart Finance for Smart Buildings initiative and the financial pillars. The direct target countries are Poland, Latvia and Denmark, building on the activities of the Sustainable Energy Investment Forums initiative. The action will develop a supporting framework with activities such as 1) analysing the possibility to upscale existing best practices, develop strategies, roadmaps and action plans, 2) propose improvements in the national policy frameworks and measures, and 3) develop jointly template documents and contracts for a better functioning of the market, and will implement Roundtables where stakeholders can learn from successful initiatives, and can provide input into the policy making. The consortium will pursue a combined approach of addressing the national level (framework conditions) and regional level (topics of relevance for the given regions). Additionally, the project will develop enabling actions aiming to generate sustainable energy investments within the targeted energy efficiency areas of the call and will undertake in-depth evaluation of the impact gained as well as lessons learned of the operations in each target country. It will also provide networking and experience exchange among the stakeholders in each country as well as among the target countries where it makes sense. The project findings and achievements will be disseminated to relevant target groups, incl. other Baltic countries. Moreover, a small share of activities will be reserved to exchange with similar roundtables across Europe (coordinated by the Commission services).

CityLoops brings together six ambitious European cities to demonstrate a series of innovative tools and urban planning approaches, aimed at closing the loops of urban material flows and increasing their regenerative capacity. Demonstration actions will be implemented in relation to construction/demolition waste, including soil, and organic waste. During the inception phase, a circular city scan methodology and indicators will be developed and implemented in each city, by adapting current MFA and Urban Metabolism methods to include context-specific data and challenges, to adjust planned demonstration actions, provide an evaluation framework for the measures and monitor their progress towards a circular economy. A series of further innovative decision support tools will be developed (such as City Lab, a GIS based city planning tool, and a pre-demolition resource-mapping tool) for specific demonstration actions. In each city, a Local Stakeholder Partnership will be established at project outset, involving citizen groups, businesses communities, and other relevant partners, to guide planning and implementation. In each case, public procurement actions will also be analysed to assess potential supportive measures. As the selected cities are small to medium sized cities (pop. 50,000 – 600,000), Apeldoorn, Bodø, Mikkeli, Porto, Seville and Roskilde/Høje-Taastrup, the tools, approaches and solutions demonstrated should be replicable in a large number of cities across Europe. Replication is embedded throughout the project. At city level, all demonstration cities will prepare scale-up plans. At a regional level Collaborative Learning Networks will be established, consisting of other municipalities, public bodies, and other relevant regional institutions, to prepare regional upscaling plans. At a European level, a series of Replication Zones will be recruited over the course of the project to prepare replication plans. Guidance on replication will also be produced.

The CIRCOFIN project brings together 4 cities and regions to transition to a circular economy in the construction and buildings sector. Munich, Copenhagen, Scotland and Lisbon will prepare investment-ready circular construction hubs (CCH) and showcase how they transform local and regional markets for secondary building components and materials. CCH cover physical material banks and digital infrastructure to provide the resource basis for the EU Taxonomy requirements for construction. To date, CCH have not successfully scaled-up across Europe. The project will demonstrate that CCHs can become bankable projects at scale and provide lucrative investment opportunities for financiers. The showcases develop sound technical, business, and financial plans of more than 80 M€ total investment volume. CIRCOFIN streamlines a common project development assistance (PDA) methodology for CCH, used and validated by the showcases. The methodology results in a CCH Toolbox, which consists of customizable components for all project development stages, from pre-feasibility to due diligence and bankability appraisal. It covers all elements of CCH – physical design, digital infrastructure, logistics, business models, operation models and financial models. The results will be published as a CCH Cookbook with concrete facts and figures, ready for widespread replication by other cities and regions. Replication and roll-out aim to trigger uptake in 30 other cities and regions from the CCRI, Circular Cities Declaration and the Mission Cities of the 100 Climate-neutral and Smart Cities Mission. Investors and EU financial initiatives will gain expertise in advising CCH projects via robust technical and operational insights and learn how to review associated risks, to make better investment decisions on circular economy projects. Standardization will on CEN and ISO as well as policy recommendations improve regulation to enable business and investment cases for CCH market uptake in Europe.