Introduction

The Systemic Efficiency: Net Zero Carbon Cities initiative aims to accelerate efforts in cities through energy, buildings and mobility. Systemic Efficiency addresses the need to reduce carbon emissions through the integration of clean electrification, smart energy infrastructure and energy efficient buildings. The initiative brings together a diverse community of stakeholders from 10 industry sectors alongside academia, civil society and government at both national and city-level. The community works together to deliver exemplar solutions and strategies to drive system integration and transformation in the city-ecosystem.

Systemic Efficiency: Net Zero Carbon Cities

To deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Agreement and New Urban Agenda, it is important to have a city-centric approach which addresses the principles of the energy triangle – sustainability, resilience and affordability. 

Urbanization, growing populations and climate change are key challenges cities must address.  Together, the city leaders and business have an opportunity to rethink urban planning, energy policy and the built living environment to ensure sustainable ecosystems and human wellness. This is crucial because growing populations in urban areas will face more frequent and extreme weather events, in addition to increasing average temperatures. 

Growing urban populations will also further boost energy demand due to an increase in materials necessary to build and improve infrastructure. Thus, solutions must also address embodied carbon and circular principles in architectural and engineering design. 

To accelerate the transition to more sustainable future in cities, stakeholders have identified the following key areas of focus that will activate systemic efficiency: 

─    Flexibility and energy optimization measures to reduce energy demand across energy, buildings and transportation, including solutions for heating and cooling; 

─    Accelerate electrification of buildings and transport, which is powered by clean, renewable energy; 

─    Digitalization to enable flexible use of city infrastructures from both a demand and supply side. 

─    Circularity of materials for buildings.

Systemic Efficiency aims to enable a decarbonized, highly electrified and resilient city ecosystem though ultra-efficient buildings and smart energy infrastructure.

Objectives

The initiative aims to work with a coalition of cities and other stakeholders to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030, by focusing on energy efficiency, buildings and clean electrification.

The objective of the initiative is to deliver impact by facilitating a platform and project accelerator to:

1. Raise the level of ambition of national, regional and city-level policy-makers, financiers and private sector to:

- address energy triangle principles – sustainability, resilience/security of supply and affordability in the city context

- to move away from one-off projects towards systemic change by maximizing energy effectiveness and efficiencies among the interfaces of energy, buildings and transportation

2. Spread the adoption of best practices, and identify and promote a menu of policies, standards and designs to enable deployment of the needed business models

Partnerships

For more information or to participate in upcoming workshops and activities, contact Philip Lake at Philip.Lake@weforum.org, and Kalin Bracken at Kalin.Bracken@weforum.org.

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