One task of URBREATH is to present URBREATH in conferences to make other people aware about the project, to increase the impact of it. During the last months Sara Nyberg from the URBREATH consortium partner South Pole got the chance to do this! Here is Sara’s story on her participation in the Annual Conference of YES-Europe (Young Leaders in Energy and Sustainability Europe), where she presented URBREATH.
*This article was written by Sara Nyberg, Senior Specialist, Sustainable Infrastructure/Cities /South Pole
The importance of nature-based solutions (NBS)
On Friday 3 October, Sara got the opportunity to present URBREATH at the Annual Conference of YES-Europe, this year taking place in Vienna, Austria. YES-Europe is an organisation by and for young people who are engaging in the energy transition for a more sustainable Europe. Two of the three main topics of the conference this year were Sustainable Cities and Meaningful Impact, which are very aligned with URBREATH, which is about making cities more sustainable, and having a positive impact regarding climate mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity and other environmental aspects. Earlier during the day there was a presentation about inclusive citizen participation, where it was mentioned that people are dying already today in hot summers in Europe due to heatwaves. That’s one of the negative consequences that URBREATH is tackling. Through nature-based solutions, especially more trees and other plants, the temperature is reduced locally thanks to shading (and higher air moisture), which is reducing the urban heat island effect. It was inspirational to hear another presentation in the morning about Vienna and its work to improve its resilience and to adapt to climate change! The second conference day was recorded and can be viewed in full in the YouTube video “AC 2025 VIENNA | Sustainable Cities, Energy Transition & Meaningful Impact”, in case you want to listen to some of the presentations (or all of them!).
Presenting URBREATH at the conference
In the afternoon I held my 16-min keynote speech named “URBREATH – Urban revitalisation through participation” which starts at 7:46:05 in the YouTube video if you want to see it. In the presentation I explained what URBREATH is, presented the background and motivation for the project, the vision, the three objectives (engage, assess and replicate), mentioned the pilot cities and the consortium partners. Since the topics of the session were stakeholder engagement and to have meaningful impact, I had an extra focus on the stakeholder engagement that the cities are doing and how we’re estimating the positive impact of the projects. Some examples for stakeholder engagement that I mentioned were that students in Tallinn and Cluj-Napoca are making the design of (parts of) the NBS, and also the living lab activities. Regarding the impact estimation I mentioned the NBS evidence-based impact assessment and evaluation framework, the development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the NBS as well as the services, models and tools for the impact assessment.
After the presentation a few participants let me know that it was inspiring and that they wanted to look up more information about URBERATH – that made me glad!
Overall I’m glad that I could spread the knowledge about URBREATH at this event, to increase the awareness and to inspire others to implement more NBS!
If you are below 35 years old and are interested in energy and sustainability, follow YES-Europe on social media (LinkedIn, Instagram), and consider becoming a member! If you’re not already familiar with URBREATH, I encourage you to watch my presentation or to read my slides to know more about the project. You can of course also read more about URBREATH on this website, on the main page and on https://urbreath.eu/about-urbreath/overview/ .