Reinventing Cities
The Reinventing Cities competition stimulates the most innovative carbon-neutral developments across the globe by transforming underutilized sites into beacons of sustainability and resiliency.
We are currently on a trajectory that will increase average global temperatures by 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100. If these emissions are not appropriately addressed, cities will become increasingly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change. In order to avoid this scenario, the 2015 Paris Agreement commits signatories to pursue efforts that will limit the average global temperature increase to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Cities could deliver around 40% of the savings needed to achieve this ambition.
To achieve these outcomes, cities will require: (i) local governments to coordinate the millions of individual emissions producers to change their development habits in key sectors for the global climate trajectory, including residential and commercial buildings, energy, transport, and waste, and (ii) the mobilization of private sector investment, innovation and creativity in carbon-neutral ways of living.
Cities will need new buildings to be as close to zero carbon as possible and high levels of retrofit for existing buildings, which account for 50% of emissions in C40 cities.
Reinventing Citiesis a great opportunity for cities, urban development stakeholders, and citizens to benefit from this ‘open source’ and international contest designed to accelerate decarbonised, resilient and sustainable urban environments around the world.
Each Reinventing Cities project will further serve as a model for carbon-neutral development, demonstrating innovative and replicable climate solutions. Not only will the bidder teams need to creatively address both content and form, they will also need to demonstrate that environmental performances can be achieved in combination with noteworthy architecture and community benefits, keeping in mind the potential for duplicating their approach across the city and elsewhere in the world.
Winning projects will serve as models for cities around the world, demonstrating how the alliance between the public and private sector can shape the future, delivering decarbonised and economically viable urban development.
Reinventing Cities will:
- Help drive forward public policy making to support decarbonized, sustainable, intelligent and resilient cities;
- Support the implementation of new ideas and innovations that can be rolled out on a global scale;
- Actively drive collaboration between the private and public sectors to deliver new approaches to delivering low carbon urbanization;
- Reduce the impact of buildings emissions which account for 50% of emissions in C40 cities. In order to meet the Paris Agreement, cities need new buildings to be as close to zero carbon as possible and high levels of retrofit for existing buildings.