Climate crisis, the winners of the European Climaborough call for tenders

The 15 winning proposals of the Climaborough call for proposals have been selected. The latter is one of three projects chosen by the European Commission to develop innovative low-cost solutions in 12 cities to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, particularly in waste management, green energy and sustainable mobility. All as required by the European Union.

The project, coordinated by Anci Toscana, is financed by the European research programme Horizon Europe (Horizon-Miss-2021 call) with a contribution of around EUR 11 million (total cost is EUR 11.4 million). It involves Turin (Italy), Athens and Ioannina (Greece), Differdange (Luxembourg), Grenoble (France), Sofia (Bulgaria), Cascais (Portugal) and Maribor (Slovenia), Krk (Hungary), Katowice (Poland), Pilsen (Czech Republic) and Prijedor (Bosnia-Herzegovina).

The call, with a budget of EUR 2.4 million, was open to all economic operators and called for innovative, participative and replicable socio-technical solutions to address the environmental and climate challenges of urban centres.

The winning proposals also speak Italian as the list includes 'Traccia-To' and 'Rivestito' from Turin, projects related to waste collection. Globally, the organisers can be happy with the outcome of the competition: more than 100 economic operators submitted 64 entries from 15 countries across the EU.

In the project, each city defined a specific challenge, considered central to achieving the goal of climate neutrality by 2030. In particular: Turin, Cascais and Maribor on waste collection (WEEE in Turin, differentiated waste in Maribor and textiles in Cascais); Athens on energy and buildings; Grenoble-Alpes on the environmental impact of an urban regeneration project; Differdange on producing 100 per cent clean electricity locally; Sofia on reducing traffic in the city centre; Ioannina on the impact of waste water in Lake Pamvotida.