Northern Connections

Living Lab Event became EU Green Week Partner Event!

26 August 2019 - Published by Anne Katrine Arentsen
The living lab concept is a real life demonstration or investment project with public and private involvement where concrete innovation challenges exist for which no direct (optimal) solutions are available. As a project we try to bridge that gap by connecting international networks in order to create new partnerships and stimulate cross-border innovation developments.

Fossil-free pre-school "Hoppet"

Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, is undertaking its greatest development in modern history and will grow by nearly a third by 2035. The City of Gothenburg plans to invest €600 million a year in new schools and housing projects, all of which must meet strict sustainability criteria.  The goal for the city of Gothenburg is to decrease its consumption based CO2-emissions with 75% by 2050.

“Hoppet” means both “jump” and “hope” in Sweden. The "Hoppet" is a pre-school - and a pilot project for these future developments. It will be built with fossil-free materials and processes. This cutting-edge project will set the standard for future urban development in the city and will open up a thriving market for sustainable suppliers. The local administration of the City of Gothenburg, one of Sweden's largest managers of public premises, is both project owner and developer of “Hoppet”.

"Hoppet" is a concrete initiative to stimulate, generate knowledge and create better conditions for fossil-free construction. It´s an explorative project where different processes and materials are tried out in order to find the optimal solutions.

European Commission Green Week Label

The European Commission helps Member States to better apply EU environment rules to protect citizens and enhance their quality of life.

The 2019 edition of EU Green Week, with events across Europe, put this process of environmental implementation into the spotlight. Questions were asked like – do these laws really matter, and what the added benefits are for citizens? What does successful implementation look like?

Business Region Göteborg as host for the Living Lab Event considered the EU Commission’s intentions with the Green Week to be very much in line with the City’s political decision to build a green pre-school, thus adhering to the Paris 2 degree goal: undefined

 Business Region Göteborg applied for the official EU Green Week Partner Event label. Before admittance, we were especially requested to clarify the relevance of the LL event to the Green Week theme of environmental implementation. The Gothenburg Region measures its climate goals according to consumption, not only production, which is a broader point of view. And indeed, our application was accepted by the European Commission – DG Environment.

 Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for the Environment, concluded that the Green week has shown that more and more people are taking action and adapting their lifestyle. The Green Week 2019 has engaged thousands of actors from all over Europe in events and on social media, and brought many insights and inputs to the European Commission’s further work. We are a little part of that.
 

Numbers

The Living Lab event in Gothenburg attracted approximately 130 participants representing construction companies, architects, consultants, real estate companies, research institutes solution providers and project partners. 28 solution providers participated. Furthermore, the event truly made an echo on social media.

During the event day everyone was requested to use the hashtag #livinglabgbg. This spread the message and had over 100.000 views, which has led to more interesting companies getting in contact with the organizers. It has helped the pitching companies spread their messages transnationally and it has helped the region to spread the messages transnationally. Indeed, “Hoppet” means both “jump” and “hope!