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Planning Principles for Integrating Community Empowerment into Zero-Net Carbon Transformation

  • The adoption of the UN 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals is a landmark in international sustainability politics. For example, Europe has set ambitious targets to achieve 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. However, numerous case studies from different countries have found that accelerating the transition to net-zero carbon emissions is easily hampered by the lack of a coherent systems framework, and that implementation gaps remain at the community level. These barriers are often due to a lack of an adequate end-user (i.e., household) input and early planning participation. This work therefore aims to improve on conventional planning methods that do not reflect innovative technologies with uncertainty and may not be applicable due to the lack of community empowerment, which is a dynamic learning and intervention opportunity for end-users at different planning stages (i.e., outreach, survey, planning, implementation, management, and maintenance). Using the lessons learned from participatory action research, whereby the author was involved as a project director throughout the planning and design process, we identified a six-step cycle principle. The steps are (1) collective action commitments, (2) local values and resource identification, (3) carbon footprint inventory, (4) optimized integration of environment, economy, and energy action plans, (5) Flexible strategic energy system plans, and (6) digital performance monitoring. Ultimately, the outcomes provide application support for policymakers and planners and stimulate community engagement to contribute to the achievement of zero net carbon emissions.

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Metadaten
Author:Liwen LiORCiD, Klaus W. LangeORCiD
URN:urn:nbn:de:bvb:898-opus4-57765
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities6010006
Parent Title (English):smart cities
Title Additional (German):Planungsprinzipien für die Integration von Community Empowerment in die Zero-Net Carbon Transformation
Publisher:MDPI
Place of publication:Basel
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2023
Publishing Institution:Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg
Release Date:2023/01/30
Tag:collective actions; environmental planning; low-carbon communities; participatory action research; public–private partnerships; responsible research innovation; social science
Volume:2023
Issue:6
First Page:100
Last Page:122
Institutes:Fakultät Elektro- und Informationstechnik
Regensburg Center of Energy and Resources - RCER
Begutachtungsstatus:peer-reviewed
research focus:Energie und Mobilität
Licence (German):Creative Commons - CC BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International