Porto plays a pioneering role at a European level in the duo ecological and digital transition

For the second consecutive time, the city of Porto was selected by the European Commission (DG GROW and EISMEA) to play a leading role in the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) 2.0, integrating a set of 10 mentoring cities.

It will be up to this group to guide another 64 cities – the core cities – on a new two-year journey to create impactful strategies and develop innovative solutions that will put them at the forefront of the duo ecological and digital transition through Local Green Deals (LGD).

At the beginning of the biennium of the second edition of the ICC, the ICC Strategy Lab conference took place last week in Brussels, in which Porto participated through Porto Digital and Porto Ambiente. The director for Carbon Neutrality, Daniel Freitas, presented, in one of the sessions of sharing good practices, the dynamics that the city has built through the Porto Climate Pact, highlighting some sustainable examples in relation to the city’s-built environment.

The event involves more than 200 city leaders and business stakeholders from the core cities and ICC mentors, urban development and transition experts, providers of green and digital technology solutions, academics, and the European Commission, all committed to reaffirming the commitment of cities to the pursuit of the European Green Deal, to gauge the current momentum of the LGD strategy and to share knowledge and experiences.

Porto is represented at the ICC by Porto Digital, the Municipality's toolbox for innovation and digital transition, and by the Directorate for Carbon Neutrality, ensuring that the city's dual transition (ecological and digital), so imperative at the present, is best fulfilled.

In the previous edition of the ICC (2020-2022), €1.9 billion was allocated to ICC cities' actions and €247 million in public funding from EU, national and regional sources was mobilized, helping to facilitate 336 planned actions by the 136 central cities. This new edition will build on the success of the previous ICC programme (2020-22) and the Digital Cities Challenge (2018-20) and will provide an extensive high-level network, a solid methodological framework and strong support mechanisms.