In the context of the Online INSPIRE Conference 2020, ELISE is organising a workshop titled "The role of smart cities in meeting objectives of the Green Deal" on the 4th of June 2020 at 11h.

The workshop will showcase smart city data services and digital twins of cities using INSPIRE data, in support of the environmental and climate objectives of the Green Deal, and discuss the governance model of urban data and the potential role of Artificial Intelligence in helping smart cities meet the objectives of the Green Deal.

The European Green Deal recognises the role of cities and communities to protect and increase biodiversity in urban spaces, improve and restore damaged ecosystems to improve ecological status as well as to contribute to the ambitious reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

This requires an urban digital ecosystem that allows creating value-added services, but also for simulations of policy choices to decision-makers across cities and communities in the EU.

Cities need to have insights, actionable evidence on the state of the environment and interactions between the economy, society and the environment.

Data-driven ‘green urban services’ as well as digital twins of cities may provide useful tools for these purposes.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) used on a large set of environmental, geospatial and climate-related data, can in particular help monitor, analyse and potentially act without human intervention, in order to effectively deliver on the Green Deal’s objectives in smart cities.

Implementing data-services can also unlock business opportunities for data services and spur a European smart cities market.

Cities therefore, need to have access to locally relevant, cross-sectoral (environment, climate, mobility, energy, waste, resilience, etc.) as well as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data, which will be supported by the establishment of for example a common European Green Deal data space, mobility data space and energy data space, put forward by the recent European Strategy for Data. Data from the INSPIRE Directive can support administrative decisions, such as urban planning, land use, citizen participation on use of urban spaces or participatory budgeting, energy efficient building, road safety using maps, managing protected areas, flood threats or issuing building permits and their impact on the environment.In order to support the large variety of different data flows in a smart city context, the European Commission is encouraging the use of standard-based, interoperable urban platforms.

Know more ELISE events at the INSPIRE conference here.