EUROCITIES Social Innovation Lab - 19 - 21 October 2022, Bologna

Background

While fossil fuel continues to dominate our power supply and 75% of EU buildings are deemed energy inefficient, up to one in four households in Europe cannot afford to adequately heat, cool, or light their homes. The current geopolitical scenario with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rocketing energy prices placed EU policymakers in front of an even more pressing need to radically transform Europe's energy system. Not only energy-poor consumers but all citizens have to cope with oil prices now nearly double compared to a year ago.

In response to the oil market crisis and to support the EU plan to reach climate neutrality by 2050, the European Commission set out in May the REPowerEU plan, aiming to diversify gas supplies, speed up the roll-out of renewable gas and phase out the dependence on fossil fuels from Russia before 2030.

With the Fit for 55 package presented in July 2021, the European Commission had already pledged to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 - achieving these emission reductions in the next decade would provide a boost to making the European Green Deal a reality. With 13 legislative proposals, the chapeau communication to the package highlighted the aim to secure a coherent and balanced framework for “a socially fair transition by tackling inequality and energy poverty through climate action”.

The promising shift towards a faster and more sustainable energy transition for all can become an opportunity for mitigating energy poverty. Many cities have already embarked with social economy actors on local innovative projects to tackle inequality, social exclusion and energy poverty while implementing climate actions. Other cities are setting long-term strategies with a holistic approach to foster healthy, energy-efficient, circular and economically diversified urban environments.

The Social Innovation Lab will engage city representatives in sharing, learning and co-creating innovative solutions to support an inclusive and just energy transition, using new opportunities for energy efficiency measures targeting the most vulnerable, developing renewable energy communities and retraining workers. We aim to build the capacity of cities to develop and apply social innovations to mitigate the social impacts of energy crisis and support a just transition.

Expected outcome

Eurocities will use the main outcomes from the workshop discussions to feed into the key EU policies and processes under the EU Green Deal and thus, Fitfor55, Renovation Wave and REPowerEU, to show how cities can lead the way by example towards an inclusive and socially fair transition in Europe.

What is ‘social innovation’?

We understand ‘social innovation’ as a policy intervention (or any policy-related activity) that offers new solutions to challenging social issues in support of social progress. It is an innovative policy response to address unmet social needs more effectively. Innovative responses can be new products, services, policies, processes or collaborations. The focus is both on the process of developing and implementing new ideas for social change as well as their end result in terms of the social impact produced on the ground. In our context, ‘social innovation’ is not understood as state-of-the art research or experimentation, but as innovative approaches in local social policies in a given urban context (can be a novel approach in one city while a mainstream practice in another city).