The Pilot Cities Guidebook is a deliverable under Work Package 4 (WP4) of the NetZeroCities (NZC) project, that covers the design and implementation of a Pilot Cities Programme via an open Call for proposals and subsequent granting programme.

The objective of the Guidebook is to support cities in preparing proposals for submission to the open Call, providing guidance on the scope, aims, and objectives of the Pilot Cities Programme and wider NZC project methodology, introducing key concepts and terminology, and references to useful resources, tools, and case studies related to these.

The Pilot Cities Guidebook is a resource to be published to provide support and guidance to cities intending to apply to the NZC Pilot Cities programme.

It contains support and guidance relating to the context for and focus of the NZC Pilot Cities programme (and includes a Call timeline), introducing key concepts, terminology, and components of the programme; and, where applicable, additional resources, links, case studies, and examples for cities to utilise in the preparation of their application.

The Guidebook may be updated, as any supporting information changes and/or becomes available. A frequently asked questions (FAQ) will be made available where enquiries and subsequent responses are relevant to all potential applicants.

In addition to this Guidebook, the Call Guidelines will be published for the opening of the Call (as per the timeline under section 2.1) which will contain the Call to Action, assessment and selection criteria, and technical information related to the application process.

The Guidebook has been compiled to ensure the objective of the Guidebook being both informative and generative for cities considering and application to the NZC Pilot Cities Programme, and is framed around the following questions:

• Why is this [section/topic] relevant to NZC and the Pilot Cities Call?
• How is this useful or relevant to cities while preparing their proposal?
• Are there any relevant illustrative examples and case studies?
• What resources and/or future NZC Platform resources/services cities should look out for?
• Recap: What questions should cities ask themselves, in relation to this section/topic?
• What are key terms that should be covered in a glossary?
• Are there any formal References that should be included?

How to read this Guidebook:

• The guidebook is broadly structured in alignment with the Call guidelines and assessment criteria, though the primary design principle has been to support cities’ ideation and thinking in advance of submitting an application.
• Key terms and concepts, highlighted in bold and blue, are defined for the purpose of NZC Pilot Cities Programme, and can be found in the Glossary.
• As per the Call Guidelines, in the case of a multi-city application to the Pilot Cities call, please note that references in this document to “city” will imply the group of cities or each city involved in that group.

Cities are the centres of economic activity, knowledge generation, innovation, and new technologies, and influence the quality of life of citizens who live or work in them, contributing substantially to the well-being of European communities. They play a pivotal role in achieving the European Green Deal (EGD) target of reducing emissions by 55% by 2030 and of climate neutrality by 2050. Cities take up only 4% of the EU’s land area yet are home to 75% of EU citizens. Furthermore, cities consume over 65% of the world’s energy and account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions. Three out of four EU citizens were living in urban areas in 2014 and this number is expected to rise to approximately 83.7% by 2050.

Climate mitigation is therefore heavily dependent on urban action through green and digital transformation. Mission cities are expected to lead this transformation by achieving climate neutrality before 2030, as well as to offer cleaner air, safer transport, and less congestion and noise to their citizens. The objectives of the EU Mission on Climate-neutral and Smart Cities ('Cities Mission') are to achieve 100 climate-neutral and smart European cities by 2030 and to ensure that these cities act as experimentation and innovation hubs to enable all European cities to follow suit by 2050.

This level of ambition is an extraordinary undertaking and will require profound and systemic changes. Government leadership will be critical, as will actions by industry, education and research institutions, and civic organisations, requiring alignment in terms of policies, governance, and how we arrange for the needed capital investments.

To meet its goals, the Cities Mission will also need to help overcome the substantial challenges that currently prevent the objective of climate neutrality in 2030 from being achieved by a large group of cities. Many cities and city organisations have stated that, while they want to go further and faster, they face barriers in doing so, such as their operational capacity and capability; the availability of funding and finance; and the need to develop political support both with their voters and within their individual countries. These are concrete examples of the many difficulties faced by cities on their journey to climate neutrality, though not necessarily the only ones.

In areas such as urban mobility and energy efficiency of buildings, the characteristics of cities - such as high levels of population density and geographic focus - lend themselves to innovation opportunities that can have a large impact on climate neutrality. Cities represent a major share of Europe’s building stock, where renovation is a must to save energy on the way to climate neutrality. This can bring massive (and visible) "co-benefits" such as better outdoor and indoor air quality, less road congestion, healthier active mobility, and healthier, more climate-proof and comfortable buildings; fewer road deaths, less noise, and a cleaner, more beautiful; and a more valuable urban environment. In other words, there is a strong and positive “spill-over” effect from policy measures to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) in cities which will help them build support for such measures amongst citizens.

Smart city solutions and data-sharing at scale are offering opportunities to plan, implement, and monitor reductions in emissions across a range of sectors, such as urban mobility, energy efficiency in buildings, monitoring of air pollution, water and waste management.

Recognising that the majority of investment to achieve carbon neutrality will need to be made, directly or indirectly, by citizens, property owners, utilities, infrastructure developers, businesses, and other stakeholders (indeed, it is estimated in this work by Material Economics that only 17% of investment will be made by cities directly), cities will play a key role in mobilising other stakeholders through use of their planning powers, their role as shareholders of utilities, through initiatives targeting citizens, through use of incentives, and through catalysing investment targeting multiple stakeholders.

Resources and other initiatives

• The NZC Mission Platform will have a Knowledge Repository containing case studies and example for inspiration and orientation and a Dashboard for cities to monitor and compare progress. In addition, it will have an Innovation Ecosystems Map of Europe-based clusters, incubators, and support programmes, that support technology companies providing sustainable solutions to urban climate strategies.
• The Living-in.EU movement seeks to accelerate the digital transformation in a way that assists cities and communities to address a range of societal challenges; in particular those resulting from climate change.
• European Climate Pact.
• The New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative for climate-neutral urban quality transformations.
• Mannheim Declaration, promoted by ICLEI, to support cities in developing and implementing “Local Green Deals”, as well as the New Leipzig Charter adopted in November 2020 which placed particular emphasis on green, just, and productive sustainable city development.
• National Energy and Climate Plans.
• EU Cohesion Policy.
• Urban Agenda for the EU.
• EU Pact for Skills
• Recovery and Resilience facility and plans
• REPowerEU Plan
• EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities: Implementation Plan

The NZC Pilot Cities Programme will identify and support European cities to test and implement innovative approaches to rapid decarbonisation over a two-year pilot programme, working across thematic areas and functional silos in support of systemic transformation. The selection of pilots will seek to address all urban systems contributing to climate-neutrality, including mobility, energy systems and the built environment, material and resource flows, natural areas, cultural/social/financial/institutional systems, and accessible public spaces. Any one pilot might target all, or a combination of, these urban systems, depending on their context and the scale of the proposed pilot.

The Pilot Cities are expected to test and implement innovative solutions, or groups of solutions, at city or district level over the duration of the pilot project, surfacing explicit lessons learnt from the innovative trajectories, with knowledge, capacity and capabilities developed at city level. A clear set of innovative solutions ready to be implemented, scaled and/or replicated should be identified by the end of the pilot project. This could include new business models, policy initiatives, governance innovation, funding or financing models, and replication or scaling strategies.

Selected pilot cities will receive funding and hands-on support from City Advisors and NZC Consortium partners to refine their pilot activities before starting implementation to address compliance and feedback from the selection process. As cities and/or local communities participating in pilots work to leverage additional resources, the Mission Platform will assist them in building funding and financing for full implementation and subsequent replication and scaling efforts.

Finally, numerous activities will be organised to advance learning among Pilot cities as a key component for building capabilities, replicating successful innovations, and deepening relationships. A twinning programme (City Learning Programme) will link each Pilot City with two or three twin cities from across EU member states and (H2020) Associated Countries. The twinning effort aims at building inclusive participation in effective climate action, nurturing just transitions, and building social cohesion.

The coordination of and across selected pilots is a necessity both at the city scale and the EU scale in order to build a diversity of proof-points showing pathways for further and far-reaching transformation in European cities and across the European Union. The pilot selection process therefore aims to construct a strategic portfolio where each pilot has the potential to test and demonstrate the viability of a pathway to change in a particular context. Together, Pilot Cities are complementary in painting the picture of what systemic change could look like.

Good pilots:

• start from the recognition that, in the words of the EU Mission Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Implementation Plan,
  "The main obstacle to climate transition is not a lack of climate-friendly and smart technologies, but the capacity to implement them. The present silo-based form of governance, designed and developed for traditional city operations and services, cannot drive an ambitious climate transition. Therefore, a systemic transformation is urgent."
• aim for systemic transformation by purposefully combining multiple levers of change to build capacity for accelerating impact. This effort could focus on one or several key emissions domains
• are rooted in a local understanding and collaborative self-assessment of key barriers or opportunities for accelerating the climate transition that a city is facing. Hence the pilot cities focus on the key next steps (i.e., interventions leading to breakthroughs and/or tipping points) a city should explore to reduce its harmful emissions, with input from multiple actors across society
• test a combination of innovations across different levers of change within one emissions domain or by bringing together different emissions domains in e.g., a district-based holistic proposition, or new city-wide governance arrangements that build systemic capacity for accelerated change
• reinforce an organizational dimension to cultivate a culture of 'radical collaboration' to sustain and scale shared action towards climate neutrality across society

In addition, the Mission Platform will support Pilot Cities to:

• unlock internal change at city councils creating stable cross-departmental structures connected with the top management of the cities
• foster solid bonds among city stakeholders: other public administrations (regional/national), private sector, academia, civil society and citizens, and mass media
• reinforce urban climate neutrality endeavour at the national/country level, through a ‘snowball effect’ connecting the pilots with the transformation of other cities in the same country

The Pilot Cities will:

• accelerate their own learning about how to achieve breakthroughs and overcome systemic barriers, and
• show a diversity of pathways towards transition that other cities across Europe can learn from and adapt to their own context

Where available, Pilot Cities’ effort will build on their past and/or current innovation efforts, paying attention to what has/is being learned, and to set out what is needed to enable accelerated change.

Illustrative examples

• A Pilot City focuses on an integrated mobility transition, leveraging the city government’s role across technology, finance, regulation, participation, and contract types.
• A Pilot City focuses on 'whole-district' energy transition, connecting built environment with energy systems through the exploration of new financial instruments, urban planning policies and digitally enhanced governance models.
• A Pilot City focuses on exploring new data handling capacity in combination with outcomes-based regulation and procurement reform, working with representatives from across the city's emission domains to better align existing resources and unlock new sources of finance.

Date / Time (CET)	Item	Link
March 2022	ItemEarly announcement of the call timeline on the project website	NZC Website
June 2022	Publication: Guidebook for participants A Pilot Cities Guidebook will be launched at the NZC Conference in June 2022, to support cities in preparing proposals for submission to the open Call. Publication: Call Guidelines The guidelines for the Call, including eligibility, assessment, and selection criteria, will be published both to the NZC website, Mission Portal, and EU Funding and Tenders Opportunities Portal under the type of grants “Cascade Funding Calls”	NZC Platform EU Mission: Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities | European Commission Funding & tenders (europa.eu)
27 June 2022 4 July 2022 5 September	NZC Pilot Cities Programme: Ambition, approach, application NZC Pilot Cities Programme: Criteria for selection and the selection process Technical information session Open forum	27 June 4 July
Monday 5 September 2022 (12.00 CEST)	Call Opens At 12.00 CEST hrs on Monday 5 September, the NZC Call, and Grant Management module will go live. Cities will be able to register themselves with the module through the NZC Mission portal and create a proposal with headline information. Cities will be able to save and return to this proposal at any time up until the submission deadline as stated below	NZC platform
June – October 2022	Publication: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Between June and October 2022, a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file will be created and updated.	NZC platform
Friday 4 November 2022 (23.59 CET)	Call deadline Formal deadline for full submission. Proposals received after this date will not be accepted. No extensions can be granted and modification of your proposal after submission is not possible. We suggest setting your own internal deadline ahead of this date.	NZC platform
November 2022 – January 2023	Review and selection Proposals will be checked against eligibility criteria (Stage 1) and eligible proposals reviewed by independent external experts (Stage 2). Proposals reaching a minimum scoring threshold against specified criteria will proceed to final selection (Stage 3). More information about these Stages will be published with the Call Guidelines when the Call is launched.
28 February 2023	Decision Communication Formal outcomes will be sent to applicants, along with feedback.
March 2023	Contract development Applications amended to address compliance and selection feedback. Due diligence checks and finalisation of revised project plans.
March 2023	Publication of Call outcomes and selected Pilot Cities Parallel to the contracting process, a list of successful Pilot Cities will be published to the NZC Platform and disseminated through NZC communications channels. This will include a description to illustrate the portfolio selected.	NZC platform

Proponents to the NZC Pilot Cities Programme will have at their disposal a range of support and guidance for preparing and submitting a proposal to the Call, such as:

1. The NZC Pilot Cities Programme Guidebook
   This Guidebook is intended to introduce proponents to the NZC Pilot Cities Programme and covers a detailed overview of the framing for the programme, its intended approach and anticipated outcomes, and key concepts and terminology.
   
   Proponents are encouraged to use the content of this Guidebook as inspiration for developing their pilot activities’ ideas and aligning it to the NZC Pilot Cities Programme, including its assessment and selection criteria.
2. Information sessions
   With the launch of this guidebook the NZC Consortium have also scheduled a series of information sessions to support and guide cities in developing their pilot activities’ ideas and putting together a proposal. The information sessions will cover:
   • NZC Pilot Cities Programme: Ambition, approach, application
   • Criteria for selection and the selection process
   • Technical information session
   • Open forum (Q&A)
3. Mission Portal
   Proponents will be required to register with the NZC Mission portal in advance of applying to the NZC Pilot Cities Programme, which will give them access to various resources but also the Call application module itself.
   
   The Mission portal will provide cities with access to:
   
   • An NZC onboarding module
   • Case studies
   • A peer-to-peer collaboration space
   • A Knowledge Repository
   • The Call and grant management module
   • System technical guidance (Call and grant management module)
   • Future iterations of this Guidebook
   • Contact points to City Advisors and City Expert Support Facility
   Besides this Guidebook, a series of documents and/or supporting materials associated with the Call (such as Guidelines, Annexes, FAQ, and other relevant documents) will be made available on the Mission portal. Proponents are requested to consult them regularly for potential updates while working on their applications. Specific questions that are not addressed either by this Guidebook or through the Mission Portal should be direct to: pilotcities@netzerocities.eu

The NZC City Learning Programme is a multi-month programme that aims to transfer knowledge and build capacities across Pilot and Twin Cities [Twins] engaged in the programme. At its core stands the strategy of impact through peer learning. Peer learning is an educational approach that couples two or more learners with a similar background and allows them to actively shape each other's development through knowledge exchange and collaborative problem-solving.

In NZC, we are deploying this principle by pairing each Pilot City (or in the case of multi-city application, the group of cities) with two or three Twins. Those Twins will be cities with a similar background as the Pilot Cities and might face similar challenges. These could be based on geography, national context, socio-economic or similar. Through that, NZC aims to extend the impact of the work of Pilot Cities beyond its initial cohort. For the duration of the programme, NZC will guide those cities through a series of online and in-person meetings. These meetings aim to create a clear understanding of each other's challenges and exchange or generate potential solutions. It is foreseen that each Pilot City visits their Twins once with a small delegation, and the Twins will also visit the Pilot City once.

This programme is a mandatory part of the Pilot Cities Programme. Therefore, a certain percentage of staff commitment will need to be assigned within the Pilot City budget. The programme team will approach Pilot Cities to develop tailored city profiles to ensure a high-quality match in the selection of the Twins. The current timeline foresees the Call for Twins for June 2023 and the programme's start for September 2023. This way, Pilot Cities have time to develop their activities and gather initial insights. More information will be made available to the Pilot Cities at a later date.

Ten Climate-Neutral Cities Advisors will be appointed from amongst the NZC consortium partner organisations to help Mission, Pilot and Twin Cities strategically advance systemic change and pursue Mission ambition. Activities will include helping cities access the Platform for use of tools and resources, facilitating exchanges among cities and linking them with project partners and experts, building meaningful cooperation between cities involved in the Pilot Cities Programme and the City Learning Programme, and ongoing support and systems change guidance and advice, including identifying needs for, and assisting with the application process to, the City Expert Support Facility (more on this service below).

A City Expert Support Facility (CESF) will be developed to support Pilot Cities with direct expert support tailored to the scope of the pilot activities. The CESF will service Pilot Cities’ expertise needs on targeted activities that require either non-NZC business capabilities or levels of effort beyond the initial allocation to an existing NZC partner. The Facility will be launched immediately following the Pilot Cities selection process. City Advisors will work with their Pilot Cities to scope out support and expertise requirements to submit to the Facility via a dedicated application form.

Support will be provided by both NZC consortium partners and, where expertise is not available from within the consortium itself but is critical to a proper development and implementation of pilot activities, external parties and/or local partners will be engaged, including from within the NZC Community of Practice (CoP). Local partners will be engaged where limited capacity is needed for context, culture, and/or language capabilities, or where more intensive local capacity is needed.

The NZC CoP acts as an advocate for NZC methodologies beyond the project, and a place to connect cities to experts. It is a virtual space for cities to post their needs and a repository where practitioners can organize in groups based on geography and specialties, and participate in events, podcasts, webinars, trainings, certifications based on the NZC knowledge repository.

The P2P Social Network and Collaboration Space is the key module within the Mission portal for interactions between users, including cities, the NZC consortium, and the wider NZC Community of Practice. Pilot Cities will use this for:

• Meeting, networking, and engaging with other NetZeroCities cities on activities, ideas, insights, and innovations
• Providing online space for virtual sense-making sessions
• Joining and forming groups of cities working on thematic topics
• Working with their Twin Cities and developing the Twinning Relationships
• Sharing their city’s activities, ideas, insights, and innovations
• Learning and posting about events hosted by peer cities/ events of interest
• Forming consortia of cities for external funding opportunities
• Having private, bilateral conversations

The social network element of the module provides an open network visible to all, providing a site for open discussion and posting across the NZC community. It will also be the initial landing page of the portal following log-in, with links to key content in other modules such as the Knowledge Repository and the data reporting capability in the City Dashboard

The groups pages provide the space for more structured ongoing interactions, with facilities for document sharing, online meetings, and collaborative working. Users can determine the privacy settings, so there will be a range of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ features, for which the users can determine the privacy settings. Groups pages will be established both for thematic working and for the City Learning Programme (’twin’) working groups

The meetings and events pages provide functionality for webinars/sensemaking sessions/learning events.

Knowledge Repository

The Knowledge Repository of the NZC/Mission Platform will include a very complete overview of best practice examples from cities across Europe. The Knowledge Repository aims to inspire cities to take concrete actions towards climate neutrality in each stage of the value chains and affecting all the city systems to achieve a broader impact

It will include:

• State-of-the-Art solutions (structured in main thematic areas where to take action in the different city systems in which emissions need to be reduced)
• H2020 projects solutions review (structured under the same basis)
• Multimedia case studies (on climate actions)
• Social Innovation case studies
• Case studies on citizens' and stakeholders' engagement methodologies
• Policy framework database
• Knowledge tool on funding sources

Besides the Knowledge Repository resource, the NZC/Mission Platform will offer tailored expert support to cities to further investigate specific solutions, concepts, barriers, co-benefits, through the City Expert Support Facility (section 3.2 of this Guidebook).

Working on system transformation requires a strong political and public mandate. It entails large scale change in conditions of uncertainty. It will inevitably lead to disruption and displacement that will be noticeable in people’s day to day lives. To make that change stick, it will be important to embrace new forms of governance that emphasise collaboration, participation, and experimentation.

To make systems transformation possible at city-scale means developing a deep understanding of co-benefits and entangled value. If the positive effects of the climate transition on e.g. health, wellbeing/quality of life, local economy, and education are not recognised, it will always be harder to show that it represents value for money. Moving away from only recognising benefits that are quantifiable and monetisable means cities can be bold in laying out a positive and holistic vision for the future that recognises the multiple interdependencies between departments.

A fundamental principle of the NZC Pilot Cities Programme is to first understand the problem(s) in scope the pilot activities, both in terms of GHG emissions and in terms of the structural, technical, institutional, socioeconomic, and cultural barriers to change.

In their proposal for the NZC Pilot Cities Programme, cities will therefore first be asked to identify the city systems they will work on, the emissions domains relevant to those city systems, and the current barriers to transformative change, and then the potential systemic solutions or innovations to deploy and learn from over the two years of the initiative.

Reaching zero emissions from cities will require strong reductions and offsetting measures across all city systems e.g.: energy, transport, buildings, food, water, material use, and related emissions domains, e.g.: grid-supplied energy, industry and manufacturing, agriculture and forestry, waste treatment, etc. Technologies and innovative solutions should be implemented and deployed for this purpose.

Action will be required across the city, focusing on the following priorities (taken from the EU Info Kit for Cities from the Cities Mission):