Cities across the North Sea Region face a collective need to respond to the demands of climate change, and to make a transition towards resource efficient and environmentally sustainable economy. This is against the background of a strong recent history in the Region of leading World Energy Cities, which will transition in the coming years towards lower-carbon energy production and technology. The aim would be to move towards a Region which can enhance the living standards of occupants, though the adoption of integrated strategies concerning urban design, mobility and industrial and economic growth.

The consortium of cities and experts included within the proposal draws on regions and locations which face particular shared challenges, related to the sourcing, production and refinement of energy fossil fuels, coupled with challenges pertaining to their continued position within industries including fishing and shipping.

Cities in the anticipated consortium have been pro-active in the development of ambitious plans to deal with the realities of changing industry, society and demographics, with specific agendas concerning energy and energy flows. These include the nature of new urban developments which extend the cities themselves, and approaches to sustainable transport across the region.

There is strong evidence from work undertaken within the Region, however, that there is a pathway between a high carbon model of urban development to the low energy, low carbon, highly sustainable municipalities that a number of progressive European municipalities are aspiring to become by around 2030. All municipalities’ (and organisations) can be placed somewhere along this pathway. 

It is proposed that the policy making of progressive, low carbon, low energy municipalities are characterised by strong ‘institutional alignment’. That is, strongly vision-driven governance, where policies interconnect and are similarly driven by a low-carbon strategy, which has the capacity to improve quality of life, inward investment and cross-sector benefits. There is a need for all institutions of regional governance being aligned around a shared vision integrating energy, transport, land use planning, housing and resource sustainability. Exploration of how that alignment can be developed and become embedded will form a central strand of the work.

Where one has the ‘unaligned aspirational centre’, municipalities may aspire to be low carbon and low energy, but progress will often be made on a project to project basis, usually with a few individuals working in silos.

The new challenge, therefore, is to find ways to engender greater institutional alignment, to allow the aspirational unaligned centre (learning from the progressive municipalities) to create more effective shared vision that policy makers and stakeholders can align themselves to.

The project will facilitate and deliver models for fully integrated and aligned strategic sustainable planning, developed with particular attention to the partner cities. The models will address the efficiency of energy flows across various sectors, and various types of city. A specific focus within the project will be on the impact of sustainable energy planning, design and behaviour on North Sea Region cities facing economic and energy challenges in the coming years.

• The project will result in the development of clear and detailed strategies to support cities to more towards a green economy, whilst recognising the values and strengths inherent in existing energy cities and centres.
• The project will support cities in the development of innovative projects embedded in comprehensive urban planning. The partner cities will all have plans to implement ambitious projects directed at addressing challenges of a transition to a greener economy, and these will be a key base for the development, testing and validation of the sustainability audits and planning tools.

The lead partner (RGU) has strong existing connections with Energy Cities in the North Sea Region (Aberdeen, Stavanger and Esbjerg). In addition, the lead partner has also developed strong working relationships (through previous projects including CARE North, Build with CARE and eHarbours) with cities and city regions who can demonstrate routes through which a visionary and integrated approach to urban planning has enabled a transition towards a new kind of energetic and sustainable form of settlement.

The lead partner (RGU) has strong existing connections with Energy Cities in the North Sea Region (Aberdeen, Stavanger and Esbjerg). In addition, the lead partner has also developed strong working relationships (through previous projects including CARE North, Build with CARE and eHarbours) with cities and city regions who can demonstrate routes through which a visionary and integrated approach to urban planning has enabled a transition towards a new kind of energetic and sustainable form of settlement.