On the 15th and 16th of June, the LOCALISED consortium met in Gdansk for a project partner meeting to present on-going activities, discuss features and the co-design process for the Decarbonisation Profiler and Net-Zero business consultant tools and chart the course for the future of the project. 

The primary objective of the meeting was to ensure all LOCALISED partners were on the same page regarding the project’s progress and to determine the next crucial steps. Each partner presented updates on their respective Work Packages and tasks, offering insights into achievements thus far and sharing plans for future actions. The meeting served to establish upcoming milestones and identify strategies for effectively developing the LOCALISED tools and engaging stakeholders. Discussions took place in particular on quantifying the impacts of climate mitigation and adaptation measures and instruments on social equity and fairness and how to include it in the planned tools. Another focus was on collecting project findings so far and how to make them known to the project audiences, e.g. the scientific community and political actors at different levels. Indeed, some bilateral groups facilitated an exchange of knowledge and experiences, enabling the different partners to capitalize on collective expertise. 

While the meeting was an occasion for intense discussions and planning, it also provided an opportunity for LOCALISED members to forge connections and strengthen cooperation. In addition to the productive sessions, the partners indulged in city sightseeing of Gdansk. These moments of leisure, culminating in a delightful dinner, created a relaxed and interactive environment where participants could interact on a personal level.

The meeting was made possible thanks to the LOCALISED partners Metropolitan Area Gdańsk-Gdynia-Sopot and the Institute of Fluid-flow Machinery of the Polish Academy of Science.

Figure 1 – Spatial disaggregation of CO2 emissions from the residential sector. These emissions are distributed proportional to population numbers. Please note that the values here are strictly exemplary.

LOCALISED aims to provide climate action plans at a community-relevant, local administration decision scale for all the EU27 countries. As a result, a major part of the work carried out within the project involves spatial disaggregation of country-level decarbonisation trajectories to a regional level.

In a nutshell, spatial disaggregation methods aid in increasing the spatial resolution of the data. These methods employ proxy data, available at a fine resolution, to distribute the data available at a coarser resolution. A simple example of this process is shown in Figure 1. Here, the  emissions from the residential sector are spatially disaggregated based on population numbers.

Figure 2 – Workflow involved in the disaggregation of decarbonisation trajectories and provision of all the data collected in the process through the LOCALISED data-sharing platform.

The decarbonisation trajectories [1] involve several attributes on various themes such as sectoral emissions, electricity and heat generation, sectoral electricity and heat demand, etc. The spatial disaggregation of the plethora of attributes requires collection of spatially highly resolved data on various themes such as demography, local climate conditions, infrastructure status, road and rail networks, landscape features, etc. Moreover, this data is required for all the EU27 countries.

A one-stop, open-source database that provides data at a fine spatial resolution of NUTS3 [2] or finer Local Administrative Unit (LAU) [3] resolution for all the EU27 countries is required to spatially disaggregate the decarbonisation trajectories.

Due to lack of such a database, we are building our own. To that end, we collect, process, and curate data from different public databases at NUTS3, and where possible, LAU spatial level. We plan to make this database openly accessible via our data-sharing platform. What’s more, the spatially disaggregated decarbonization trajectories will also be published via this platform. Figure 2 shows the entire workflow leading up to the data-sharing platform.

We believe that the data-sharing platform will be indispensable to energy system modelers, researchers focusing on mitigation and adaptation measures at a regional scale and local administrations, across the EU.

A pilot version of the LOCALISED data-sharing platform is planned to be released to the public in July 2023. An update regarding the access and usage of the platform will follow soon.

References:

[1] https://www.localised-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LOCALISED_D2.1_Decarbonisation_scenarios.pdf

[2] NUTS – GISCO – Eurostat (2021). NUTS – GISCO – Eurostat, 2021 [Dataset]. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administra-tive-units-statistical-units/nuts (accessed Nov. 23, 2022).

[3] GISCO – Eurostat, “LAU – GISCO – Eurostat,” 2020. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/lau (accessed Nov. 23, 2022).

The first phase of the stakeholder mapping has been completed: all LOCALISED partners have been involved in identifying the most relevant stakeholders to be engaged in the first phase of the project. Up to now, the focus was mainly on the interactions with the “wise” group, i.e., people whose expertise in local decarbonisation procedures and adaptation plans is extremely helpful to co-design the tools.

The identification of relevant stakeholders followed a precise methodology, starting with developing the stakeholder mapping matrix. This matrix collects all the necessary information about the selected stakeholder, including: name, contact details, title/position in the institution, gender, and variables related to her/his company (e.g. organisation name, country, activity type, sector of expertise, and geographic coverage). The process of mapping started with a desktop research in which all LOCALISED partners were asked to add all relevant stakeholders, and it was extended through snowball sampling activities. 

A first analysis of the composition of the “wise” group was performed by T6 Ecosystems and the results highlighted the need to enlarge the sample in terms of sector of expertise, activity type, geographic coverage, and to reach a gender balance. Then, bilateral discussions with WPs Leaders who are engaging stakeholders from the “wise” group took place to determine specific persons or categories to include in the mapping. As a result, a further in-depth analysis was done in correspondence with specific WPs, which led to the actual composition of the “wise” group (74 members) that was satisfactory for all the partners. Indeed, stakeholders from 14 different countries were identified, revealing a heterogeneous composition, while others come from European or global institutions. Most of them operate at the supra-national level (57.6%), but there are also organisations with national (19.7%), regional (6%), and municipal coverage (16.7%). There is equilibrium also regarding the distribution over activity types, i.e., academic organisations (21.9%), private companies (17.8%), and public institutions (26%) are all relevant, and there is also a smaller portion of members from the civil society (9.6%). In the end, gender balance was almost reached among the “wise” group (56.4% are male and 43.6% are female).

More information is available in the “Initial insights from stakeholder interaction following the LOCALISED methodology” (D8.4)