15 Feb 2023
Authored by Lucas Borges, UN-Habitat’s consultant for the Climate Smart Cities Challenge in Curitiba
In January, the winning team Smart Neighborhoods, colleagues from the Curitiba City Hall and Secretariats, and UN-Habitat came together for an immersion into the challenge laid out by the city of Curitiba as part of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge and began planning the proposed system demonstrator.
Curitiba’s objective in entering the Climate Smart Cities Challenge, is to advance new solutions for creating zero-carbon neighborhoods, beginning with the areas of Vale do Pinhão and Vila Torres. While the two neighborhoods selected are geographically proximate, they are characteristically different. Vila Torres is a low income neighborhood and Vale do Pinhão was an industrial neighborhood that today houses many up and coming companies alongside residences.
Curitiba’s winning team, Smart Neighborhoods, aims to reduce and offset carbon emissions through an integrated solution consisting of a mobile application, a local social network, smart urban furniture, an urban garden and composting system, and local physical and digital interventions that together make climate friendly behaviors possible. The team is composed of four companies from Brazil and Sweden. Agentes do Meio Ambiente (AMA), the coordinators of the Smart Neighborhoods team based in Curitiba, bring to the solution their smartphone application, and local environmental educators; Ambiente Livre, also a Brazilian organization, contributes with their urban garden and composting systems. Smart Green Stations, a Swedish start-up builds smart mobility and energy stations with sensors for capturing environmental and climate data; and NUDGD, the fund manager for the team, creates digital and physical nudges to drive climate friendly behaviors. Following the announcement of the winning team on 28th September 2023, the winning team received ~94,000 Euros to work with the city and plan a system demonstrator. In addition, Swedish team members NUDGD and Smart Green Stations won a 7000-euro travel grant to visit Curitiba.
Following the announcement of the winning team, in December 2022, the Mayor of Curitiba, by a decree, established a committee for the Climate Smart Cities Challenge. The Committee includes representation from various Secretariates including the Secretariates for the Environment, Food Security and Nutrition, Administration, Personnel Management and IT, in addition to Curitiba’s planning agency IPPUC, and the Curitiba Development Agency who will together take decisions on the planning and implementation of the system demonstrator.
The establishment of the Committee and the travel grant won by NUDGD and Smart Green Stations, provided an opportune moment to bring together all participants and stakeholders of the Climate Smart Cities Challenge in Curitiba. The objectives of the immersion were to
The immersion took place between the 9th -18th of January in Curitiba with a short trip to Florianópolis, the capital city of Santa Catarina state that has an internationally recognized composting system, and also a place where AMA already operates. Each day of the immersion had an objective with ample time for the group to dive into details and subsequently debrief together.
Day 1 of the immersion began with an informal introduction to the city of Curitiba, its history, its geographical spread, climate initiatives and investments already made by the city, including for example a ride on the BRT.
Day 2 brought the whole team together in the same physical location for the first time, with AMA hosting the group at their offices. The opportunity allowed the team to begin discussions on their proposed system demonstrator in preparation for a visit to the two neighbourhoods and a meeting with the Committee.
Day 3 took the team to one of Ambiente Livre’s urban farms where they got to understand how Ambiente Livre’s system of composting takes place. The team also connected City Hall officials to discuss how to formulate partnerships with the municipality. This was followed by a visit to Vale do Pinhão and Vila Torres organized by the city hall. In Vila Torres they met with the President of the Residents’ Association, an important connection for subsequent stages of implementation.
Day 4 was important because it was the first time that the Curitiba City Hall Committee for the Climate Smart Cities Challenge met with Smart Neighbourhoods. In this meeting, in addition to face-to-face presentations for the first time, the team and committee members were able to discuss open issues from previous communications, key points of the system demonstrator, strategies for joint planning, among many other topics.
Day 5 included interviews with residents and workers in the Vale do Pinhão and Vila Torres neighbourhoods followed by detailed discussions with individual members of the City Hall Committee for the Climate Smart Cities Challenge.
Day 6 & 7 gave everyone a weekend break.
On Monday, Day 8, a final debrief was scheduled with the City Hall Committee to discuss and decide on next steps.
Day 9 & 10 were dedicated to a trip to Florianopolis, to observe AMA’s work in the city, learn about the city’s excellent composting and waste management program, and also to meet with the Mayor to learn about implementing solutions in the city.
Over the course of the 9 days, the team had a lot of questions, and learned a lot. It was wonderful to see how much progress had been made collaboratively in a short period of time. The immersion in Curitiba, ended with a productive presentation on the proposed place-based system demonstrator.
Urban Garden: One of the three sites identified for the system demonstrator is public land belonging to a the City Hall. The proposal is to convert the land into an urban garden to grow vegetables – using the fertilizer generated by composting – for consumption or sale by the residents of Vila Torres, with the aim of generating job creation, healthy eating, and combating carbon emissions.
Praça Plinio Tourinho: This site already houses several activities supported by the City Hall. Residents of Curitiba, especially those from Vila Torres, can take courses, or have a free meal at a volunteer-run restaurant, among other public services. It is also the site of a municipal guard station, used for public safety assistance, beneficial to the project as it allows the installation of equipment safely on site. As part of the proposed system demonstrator the site will include a solar powered station, a composting unit and a vertical garden, with the idea that each of these additions will add to the on-going activities on the site. Produce from the garden will be given to the restaurant, nudges will encourage visitors to recycle and compost, all while the site also serves as a point to collect and track CO2 emissions for the area.
Banca: The third site will include a Banca, a traditional news and magazine stand. The Smart Neighbourhoods team will put a spin to the Banca concept by including a solar power station, that could provide a charging station for e-bicycles, impart climate education, host awareness raising activities and have embed nudges to encourage people towards more climate friendly behaviours.
In addition to physical installations and operations, the system demonstration involves a digital package through an application that integrates functionalities for local leaders, environmental education, social network functionalities for the integration of neighbors and environmental nudges.
As next steps, the Smart Neighbourhoods team has prepared a detailed plan with technical specifications for each site. With a detailed proposal, support from IPPUC, the City Hall and Curitiba Development Agency, are efforts to raise funds for the implementation of the system demonstrator have been given a boost!
The Climate Smart Cities Challenge is an open innovation competition exploring system demonstrators as an emerging approach to transform urban systems for climate neutral cities. Planning the system demonstrator has required careful orchestration of diverse actors (of innovators, startups, different municipal secretariats) focused on working in areas such as Vila Torres and Vale do Pinhão, to identify and address the various levers that will help realize the mission of zero-carbon neighborhoods in Curitiba. A collaborative immersion into the context and challenge, with open discussions and early steps being taken towards zero-carbon neighborhoods, is just the beginning. As next steps we’ll be exploring funding opportunities to implement the system demonstrator and learning mechanisms to measure impact on climate outcomes.
Stay tuned for more updates from Curitiba.
For more information about the Climate Smart Cities Challenge please reach out Lucas Borges at lucas.borges@un.org or Namrata Mehta at namrata.mehta@un.org.
