Through this partnership with the non-profit organization R20, ICLEI promotes and implements projects designed to produce local economic and environmental benefits in the form of reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, strong local economies, improved public health and new green jobs. ICLEI identifies medium to large scale climate and energy projects such as waste-to-energy, smart street lighting and other low carbon solutions looking to further develop these projects into bankable joint venture initiatives with private sector financiers in Sub Saharan Africa.

In nearly three decades of work, ICLEI has developed, tested and scaled up methodologies to guide the way towards sustainable urban development at the local level. This rich experience accumulated allows us to apply a common framework for our global projects and initiatives, which currently follows the stages: analysis, action and acceleration, and in each one follows a step-by-step guideline. This track can be applied to a variety of themes – from low emission to nature-based development – and promotes a cyclical path that allows the continuous improvement of the governments in our Network. This year’s “Cities + Sustainable – ICLEI South America Solutions Portfolio” highlights the following opportunities and initiatives ICLEI provides cities and regions in South America.

BuyZET, coordinated by ICLEI, aims to understand and optimize the impact of public procurement activities on transport patterns in cities – and to find innovative and sustainable delivery solutions for goods and services, which can help to address these challenges. The goals of the project are to boost demand for zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) and other zero emission urban delivery solutions on the European market, and to develop procurement plans to achieve zero emission urban delivery of goods and services to the public sector. To achieve the project goals, participating cities identified the areas of procurement spend with the biggest influence on the movement of goods and services. They developed plans for innovative zero emission procurement activities for these high priority areas in co-operation with key market actors and other stakeholders. ICLEI provided support for the cities in these activities, as well as established cross-border networking and experience exchange between consortium partners, other European cities, and further stakeholders. The project also resulted in a series of recommendations for both public authorities and national and European policy makers in support of zero emission delivery of goods and services.

ICLEI enables mobility planning authorities across Europe to embrace sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMP) as the European-wide strategic planning approach, especially in countries where the take-up is low and the negative effects of transport are severe. The project also improves urban transport efficiency while effectively mitigating the negative effects of transport and enhancing the attractiveness of Europe’s urban centers through a strategic planning approach based on integration, participation and evaluation principles, one that broadly implements sustainable urban mobility policies and measures. The project analyzes and verifies specific adoption needs for SUMPs in European local authorities in order to identify the most effective tools for SUMP development and actively support their adoption in various types of cities.

The African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum (ACCSF) draws together mayors and technical officers from the continent’s most prominent cities to provide a guiding light for how African cities must think about the future and lead sustainability efforts. It facilitates the exchange of knowledge and learning and provides a platform for exploring how to develop truly African solutions to African problems. The event marshals the collective power of capital cities to contribute to, and influence, the pan-African and global discourse on sustainability.

ICLEI, as the co-convener of the ACCSF, is responsible for the
content development and program design of the ACCSF. By hosting the annual event, which brings together mayors and city managers of African capital cities, ICLEI facilitates the exchange knowledge and information on potential interventions, opportunities and threats that influence the potential for economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.

ICLEI East Asia supported the Seoul Metropolitan Government in organizing the 9th Northeast Asia Forum on Air Quality Improvement as a co-organizer. The Forum was attended by officials of 35 local governments, including all EACAC cities except for Guiyang. On this occasion, Tokyo, Beijing, and Shenzhen introduced their policies on vehicle emissions reduction; Sichuan presented in the stationary emissions reduction section. ICLEI East Asia shared its experience of strengthening regional cooperation and collaboration through EACAC together with other city networks including C40, CCAC, and GUAPO.

In the last 30 years, climate change, coupled with unplanned, rapid urbanization, generated significant development challenges worldwide. ICLEI has implemented City Learning Labs FRACTAL to periodically gather a broad range of knowledge-holders and decision-makers in targeted cities to work together on developing a deep, shared understanding of critical burning issues linked to climate that cities face.

ICLEI offers a simple and convenient online process for pre-screened installers to compete for city-region bids, making it easier for North American communities to switch to solar energy.

This project will support regional governments with existing GHG reduction targets to achieve their targets, and for the ones without targets, the project will help governments to set and achieve them through the improved capacity to track GHG emission levels in detail – as well as the impacts of mitigation actions. ICLEI is supporting in the development of multi- governance policy and strategy dialogues. By supporting state and regional MRV systems and aligning them with their national counterparts, this project will promote the uptake of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (and their 2019 refinement) across states and regions globally with several subsequent benefits such as the increased consistency between different levels of governments, enhanced links between regional data sup- pliers and national data compilers and further identification of large and additional emission reduction opportunities.

SPP Regions promoted the creation and expansion of European regional networks of municipalities working together on sustainable public procurement (SPP) and public procurement of innovation (PPI). The regional networks help increase the capacity of public bodies for SPP and PPI, and send a stronger signal of demand for sustainability to suppliers. They provide support, improve skills and increase regional impact.

ICLEI supported the establishment of new procurement networks in 8 European regions. All participating networks implemented eco-innovative tenders achieving significant CO2 savings, which ICLEI supported through an intensive capacity building program. The project has produced a series of reports and guidance on sustainable procurement, including four key SPP and PPI topics: market engagement, life cycle costing, output or performance-based specifications, and circular procurement. The series of “”eco-innovative”” was published as guidance material as well. The project has also produced “”how-to”” videos on various aspects of sustainable procurement.