the eu resilience prospectus - 100 resilient...

THE EU RESILIENCE PROSPECTUS | 1

The EU Resilience Prospectus

Cities stand at the forefront of the challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century. This is especially true in the European Union and throughout Europe. While worldwide just over 55% of the population lives in cities, in Europe the number is already over 70%, due to reach 80% by 2020. Aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and mass migration disproportionately a�ect urban centers and will only continue to further impact them.

www.100resilientcities.org

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About 100 Resilient Cities 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), possesses a unique vantage point for understanding this changing landscape. The holistic lens urban resilience offers decision makers is uniquely suited to meet the needs of modern cities and the regions of which they are critical members.

Cities in the 100RC network are provided with the resources necessary to develop a roadmap to resilience along four main pathways:

Financial and logistical guidance for establishing an innovative new position in city

government, a Chief Resilience Officer, who will lead the city’s resilience efforts

Expert support for development of a robust Resilience Strategy

Access to solutions, service providers, and partners from the private, public and

NGO sectors who can help them develop and implement their Resilience Strategies

Membership of a global network of member cities who can learn from and help

each other

These global pressures affect individuals and systems on the local level, in the cities where they live. While presidents and prime ministers must slowly navigate national and international politics to reach a consensus on solutions, mayors and city leaders are already innovating and deploying new ideas, and making the investments that will provide tangible benefits for their citizens.

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What is Urban Resilience? Urban Resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. Resilience requires cities to take transformative actions that make cities better in the short- and long-term, and allow cities to not only endure, but thrive, in both good times and bad.

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The Impact of 100 Resilient Cities

• More than €450 million has been leveraged from national, philanthropic, and private sources to implement resilience initiatives throughout 100RC Network

• 33 Citywide Resilience Strategies created in the 100RC Network with over 1,600 initiatives

• More than 13,000 community practitioners are actively engaged in this process in our cities

• 138 engagements have already formed between our cities and 100RC partners to execute projects and initiatives

• More than €200 million pledged by 100RC partners in the form of pro-bono services and expertise

• More than 80 Chief Resilience Officers are currently serving in our cities, with over 10,000 hours of resilience-building capacity delivered to them

While cities in our network share common challenges across the globe,

this is especially true of cities in Europe – their collaboration with one another and their respective impact present a major opportunity

for driving a better-integrated and effective agenda for the EU as a whole.


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Pushing EU Policy to Support Urban ResilienceRepresenting more than 70% of Europe’s population, cities play a central role in shaping and driving EU policy. How the EU engages with the cities of its member states will be critical to its overall ability to develop and deliver on its priorities. The urban resilience framework, as already designed and implemented by several cities in the EU, embodies the types of strategies that both address the major challenges the EU faces and create key opportunities from them.

Fundamental to resilience-building, and to enabling the EU to address some of its most persistent problems, is working across rigid silos and designing multi-benefit solutions. By working horizontally and vertically with a variety of stakeholders, better coordination will lead to greater e�ciency, necessary redundancy, and integrated solutions that reduce the replication of e�orts. This a�ords greater flexibility in policy and a greater return on individual investments, which allow each euro to be thus invested two- or three-fold.


100 Resilient Cities and EU: Policy and Partnership Opportunities• Develop relevant funding streams leveraging existing programs such as the Urban

Innovation Actions (UIA), Horizon 2020, EU regional structural funds, and other similar instruments to advance across the EU and other regions of the world the delivery of holistic urban resilience.

• Create an EU-wide resilience challenge for cities, built on the learnings after the U.S. National Disaster Resilience Competition, given the EU’s established position in awarding project-based funds to source and implement innovative resilience initiatives (Example: U.S.-based Rebuild By Design model employed after Hurricane Sandy in the New York Metropolitan Region with dedicating funding from the European Commission).

• Create EU-led financial incentives for cities throughout Europe to hire Chief Resilience O�cers (CROs), modeled after the 100RC Network, while working together to identify financing solutions for the implementation and delivery of large-scale city resilience projects.

• Leverage the 100RC Network to identify opportunities between EU cities, with cities across the world trying to advance the Strategic Approach to Resilience in the EU’s External Action and the 12 EU Urban Agenda priority areas: integration of migrants & refugees, climate adaption, energy transition, urban mobility, digital transition, etc.

• Create a senior EU position focused on urban resilience, such as an EU Chief Resilience O�cer as top advisor or identify “Urban Resilience” as a portfolio under an EU Commissioner.

• Dedicate a pillar of the European Commission’s CITIES Forum to urban resilience and co-host an annual EU Urban Resilience Forum held jointly by 100RC and the European Commission to showcase the impact of urban resilience in Europe and how this is linked to the goals of the EU Urban Agenda.

• Form a partnership on the exchange of data, research, and learning between 100RC and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy as well as the European Political Strategy Centre to help advance this new practice led by cities in Europe.

Along with emphasizing cities as critical stakeholders, the urban resilience model provides the EU with the kind of process it now needs for new and deeply entrenched challenges, such as failing and stagnant economies; civic erosion caused by social division and inequality; diminishing financial resources; the e�ects of mass migration; the continuing e�ects of global warming; and the uncertainties caused by Brexit. Central to resilience is strength and adaptability required for a city and region to succeed and grow amid the complexities of the 21st Century.

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City Investment and Partnership Opportunities

Moving from Strategies to Implementing Resilience:

Cities consist of vast networks of individuals, institutions, and systems. The same networks are shaped by centuries-old structures that make deep collaborations and innovation within government agencies and across sectors all too rare.

In the 21st Century, it is financially and socially imperative for cities to operate di�erently. The City Resilience Strategy is one of the tools that propels 100RC member cities in this holistic and integrated direction. The City Resilience Strategy is the product of a process during which a city develops a better understand of the challenges it faces; reviews its ability to address those challenges; and unites people, projects, and priorities, so that cities to collectively act on their resilience challenges.

The document that is produced at the end of this process is not a master plan, but rather an expression of the city’s priorities for building resilience.

Cities around the world, from New York and Medellin to Melbourne and Rotterdam have produced their first-ever Resilience Strategies. As more and more cities prepare to take this important step, we want to share more about the process of developing a sound Resilience Strategy, so that other can learn from this work.

Each Resilience Strategy contains a series of actions and initiatives, which address city-specific risks and opportunities. Contained here are examples across the 100RC Network in Europe of initiatives that seek to build a resilience dividend through various actions and initiatives. With partnerships and funding from EU-focused institutions, these initiatives could begin making that impact even sooner.

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Blue-Green Bristol A Blue-Green Infrastructure Strategy for Bristol is currently under development by the City Council. The goal is to create a coordinated suite of strategies (each representing a di�erent scale or type of green or blue infrastructure), which together provide a framework for:

• Understanding existing green and blue infrastructure assets, and the multifunctional benefits they provide;

• Identifying needs and opportunities for protecting and improving the blue and green infrastructure network at di�erent scales and the benefits associated with doing so;

• Developing site-specific outputs (e.g. action plans), and the case for investment in green and blue infrastructure.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: To inform the proposed scope, the City Council seeks to better understand the value of Bristol’s existing blue and green infrastructure assets, is considering support from 100RC Platform Partner Earth Economics. The outputs will also generate a set of investment priorities for private and public funding sectors.

Contact: Sarah Toy, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected] Amy Farthing, Sustainability Project Manager | [email protected]

Welcoming Asylum Seekers and RefugeesTo make Bristol a safe place for people seeking sanctuary, the City Council has developed a Welcoming Asylum Seekers and Refugees strategy and action plan, needs assessment, and map of provision. This will ensure a coordinated community response to meet the needs of spontaneous and resettled asylum seekers and refugees arriving in the city. The City aspires to Strengthen the capacity of refugees and asylum seekers to develop needed skills and to access opportunities that will support themselves and their families to lead fulfilling lives and contribute to the social and economic wealth of the city. The City has identified next steps to be: dissemination of successes thus far (e.g. the network of welcome centres and city leadership) and collating support for innovative responses to structural inequalities (e.g. employment and housing).

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: In developing solutions for educational and economic inclusion in Bristol, and in first destination countries in the MENA region, the City Council has considered partnering with Paris, Los Angeles, Stockholm, and Hamburg, as well as NGOs and funders working in the region.

Contact: Sarah Toy, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected] Anne James, Commissioning Manager Refugees | [email protected]

Bristol, UK

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

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Paris, FranceTransform Schools Into “Oases,” Authentic Cooling Islands Since adopting its climate change adaptation strategy, Paris has launched several sites aimed at adapting urban spaces to high temperatures. Schoolyards represent more than 600,000 m2 in Paris (up to 800,000 m2 when including the “collèges”), currently covered with impermeable asphalt, and closed to the wider population even outside school hours. Furthermore, very few Parisians live more than 200m from a school, thus priming them to be local “oases” for cooling and well-being in the city. The medium- to long-term proposal is to implement a cooling programme for all schools, with the goal of gradually replacing asphalt with vegetation and/or testing new materials and new methods to cool schoolyards and/or dormitories. With this in place, schoolyards will become places for learning and well-being, as well as “cool refuges” for community members vulnerable to heat waves. With extensive stakeholder engagement, these processes will be tested in two to three schools in the next months, with the first “oasis schoolyards” expected to open in September 2018. The initiative has the potential to be replicated in 700 schools throughout Paris.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: A wide range of stakeholders in Paris are already involved in the project, and several research labs (Ecole des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) are interested in supporting the monitoring and evaluation process. Further expertise is needed around benchmarking best practices, technical innovation, and participative design with children. Furthermore, the initiative has generated funding from the city up to €150K, corresponding to a “classical” schoolyard renovation; additional funding will be necessary for technical innovation and evaluation that fall outside of the renovation mandate.

Contact: Sébastien Maire, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES


Thessaloniki, GreeceLocal Economic DevelopmentThessaloniki seeks to develop an Integrated Market Redevelopment Strategy for the traditional Kapani market by introducing new decision-making models (i.e. Business Improvement District-BID) and incentives to support traditional SMEs while upgrading urban infrastructure. Recent years have demonstrated a resurgence in interest and renewed appreciation for public markets – which contribute to urban revitalization and play a central role in community life. The Kapani Agora is the oldest open market in the city; in 2016, local business owners launched a new brand identity and visual logo for Kapani, created through inclusive design processes with local partners. The market has potential to lead the regeneration of other historic markets, and contribute to the wider regeneration of the city centre. Establishing a BID and developing an Integrated Market Redevelopment Strategy for the area will be a pilot for replication in other commercial districts.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in feasibility study, and requires support for the establishment of the BIDs. The next phase will require a tiered investment strategy for the refurbishment and for support of the SMEs.

Circular EconomyThessaloniki is creating the first Upcycling Centre and Educational Centre in the City in collaboration with social businesses and civil society. This is part of a larger, more sustainable waste management system in which product loops and materials chains are closed, and new economic models are developed. Adopting a circular economy approach at the city level requires a workforce with specific skills in redesigning products and services and upcycling used materials extracted from these products. Adopting this approach will also allow the City to create new business and employment opportunities.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in project design phase. Needed is assistance from the Economic Initiatives for Social Businesses, as well as funding for the site development.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

Athens, GreeceValue And Job Creation Through Circular EconomyThe circular economy provides solutions for many environmental, economic and geopolitical challenges that cities are facing worldwide. It provides the next step in resilience building, as it transforms waste into critical resources. Athens should do an opportunity mapping to identify which of its sectors can make the most impact in: value creation, job creation, better air quality and reduction in CO2 emissions, competitiveness in global markets, and reduction in resource use. The City’s household waste system, and specifically the organic waste chain, could be a potential driver for the transition to circularity, i.e. one of the sectors on which the City could focus to develop innovative strategies on how to extract value and create jobs.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in concept note phase, and would benefit from a feasibility study. Targeting funding could come from Structural Funds (NSRF 2014-2020), Municipal and Regional Funds, EU funded programmes.

Energy Poverty Mitigation RoadmapEnergy poverty tends to become a significant social problem in Europe. Greece is no exception. According to a recent study almost 25% of Athenian households su�er from energy poverty due to the economic crisis and are unable to cover their basic domestic needs. These households are unable to a�ord any heating during the winter and live in indoor temperatures that do not exceed 6-7 degrees Celsius in the cold months.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

Safe and Green Schools Thessaloniki is creating an investment program for energy and earthquake retrofitting of the City’s school building stock. Thessaloniki’s great earthquake of 20 June 1978 caused 50 deaths, 220 injuries, and left thousands more homeless. Direct physical damage cost €1.2 billion. Protecting and strengthening the City’s buildings and critical infrastructure such as school is essential to its resilience. In collaboration with other Municipalities and stakeholders, the Municipality of Thessaloniki will conduct a portfolio analysis of the vulnerability of its school buildings.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in risk assessment phase (feasibility study), and requires funding for the investment program’s implementation.

Contact: Lina Liakou, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

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The City of Athens will implement measures for energy poverty mitigation at city level and focusing on the most vulnerable populations. Those programs include: an Energy Poverty Observatory, energy saving awareness-raising campaign and capacity building, and a building renovation passport.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in concept note/project design phase, and would benefit from a feasibility study, communication and awareness events, and training seminars. Targeting funding could come from Structural Funds (NSRF 2014-2020, Municipal and Regional Funds, EU funded programmes).

Renewable Energy in Public Buildings and Renewable Energy Co-operativesAccording to the European Commission, in France, Spain, Croatia and even Greece, citizens have started to invest in renewable energy cooperatives, but di�erent legal contexts and lack of support mechanisms mean they still lag far behind northern European countries. The depressed macroeconomic conditions in Greece, energy poverty and the lack of social cohesion could be mitigated by the creation of energy cooperatives in the form of either a social cooperative or a business association. The main objective of this program is to enable the City of Athens to facilitate the development of either energy cooperatives at a neighbourhood level or larger resident consortium, by recognizing potential legal and other barriers proposing and helping citizens to overcome them.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative is currently in concept note phase, and would benefit from feasibility studies, maturity studies, and organizational plans. Targeting funding could come from Structural Funds (NSRF 2014-2020, Municipal and Regional Funds, EU funded programmes).

Contact: Lenio Myrivili, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

Vejle, DenmarkResilience House – Resilience Innovation And EducationResilience House is a demonstration-, innovation- and education centre for the commercialization of resilient city solutions. The house is home to the world’s first continuing education in resilience aimed at city planners, Resilience Academy, as well as Resilience Lab Denmark, a triple helix collaboration with the objective to secure a future supply of resilient energy, water and data solutions. The House opened in August 2017 and currently 70% of the 150 o�ces are occupied. First course at Resilience Academy will begin in October 2017.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: To open the Resilience Academy to a global audience, finding alternative financing models for transport and accommodations for global course participants is needed.

Contact: Jørgen Andersen, Director | [email protected] Varneskov, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

Fjord City - Flood Protection With Added ValueThe Fjord City is a laboratory for climate change adaptation and flood control. It includes retrofitting public spaces to manage water, while enhancing social and urban capital in Vejle. Fjord City comprises several sub-projects that are focused on improving residents’ quality of life and living with the water: storm flood protection, rainwater management in East City, and water retention in the uplands. In March 2017, the city council was presented with three flood protection scenarios – the result of an extensive and inclusive process that included a team of platform partners from the 100 Resilient Cities network. A steering group has been set up for further work with these scenarios. A sluice installed in November 2016 has prevented five floods in the inner city already. Finally, the city council has approved funds for technical solutions for water management in the Grejs Valley area.

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Glasgow, UKClimate Ready ClydeClimate Ready Clyde is an innovative adaptation partnership for the Glasgow city-region to address the local impacts of global climate change. It brings together eight local authorities in the Glasgow area, together with regional and national agencies to assess and act on the challenges and opportunities of climate change adaptation - recognising that things like the watercourse, electrical grid and public transport infrastructure cross over local government boundaries and therefore require a broad regional approach in relation to the impacts of a changing climate. It has attracted initial funding of £100K from the Scottish Government to establish the partnership and its business case is now being implemented through partner contributions to fund a core team.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: Climate Ready Clyde is one of the key delivery mechanisms for the Glasgow resilience strategy. Additional funding to support this work with an additional post or posts in the core team would add significant value to its work and allow for greater engagement with local partners’ activities to ensure that they are climate resilient. This could potentially include a stronger focus on incorporating climate resilience in the £1.13 billion City Deal for the Glasgow city-region.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The City seeks to next create a visible, creative, and integrated rainwater management solution in the East City, which can be a model project for similar initiatives and securing the funding for this. Additionally, to secure funding for researching, developing and implementing social solutions to water management in the Grejs Valley area along with the technical solutions.

Contact: Ulla Varneskov, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

Rotterdam, the NetherlandsMultifunctional Roofscape Rotterdam Centre Rotterdam was the first municipality in the Netherlands to successfully implement green roofs, currently counting more than 250.000m2 of green roofs, with the goal of increasing this to 1,000,000m2 across the city centre. As part of its climate adaptation strategy, Rotterdam received a C40 Cities Award for its work in this area. Techniques for greening roofs have developed and can now e�ectively cater to multiuse roofs including urban farming, solar panels, water storage and even sports facilities. These spaces can contribute enormously to the sustainability and viability of the city centre, addressing challenges related to water, greening, renewable energy, air quality, and lack of space. A program for large-scale green roofs retrofit o�ers a distinct added value to Rotterdammers by encouraging a combination of integrated solutions (such as solar panels above a green roof) for a higher return. In practice, this means more water storage, increased permeability of the urban area, energy generation, greater ecological value, food production, cleaner air, health and social cohesion amongst other benefits. Finally, the program has the potential to be revolutionary for the city centre and can be deployed at short notice without major issues.

EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

North Glasgow Inclusive Economic Growth PilotThere is currently a high level of public and private sector investment in the north of Glasgow, addressing long-term resilience challenges around post-industrial regeneration and community renewal. This geographical area and this set of challenges is a key element of Glasgow’s resilience strategy. It includes one of the most significant inner city urban regeneration projects in the UK and Europe in the Sighthill area of north Glasgow. Partners are keen to put a focus on inclusive economic growth as a key outcome of this work, acknowledging that this raises challenges - but also great opportunities - in bringing together research, policy and practice. This has a very high level of political support and is a key element of the new City Government’s approach in Glasgow to seeking more inclusive forms of growth in order to build a more resilient local economic model.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: This is an area of work which lends itself well to trans-national learning through practical research in an existing context of high levels of investment in regeneration. There is therefore a good opportunity to add further support to the work of the University of Glasgow in its primary research role in north Glasgow and to develop a broader EU discussion on the challenges of inclusive economic growth.

Contact: Duncan Booker, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

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EXAMPLE INITIATIVES

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The program is currently in a preparatory phase. One specific roof is part of EU-Life-funding. The City seeks examples of best practices in other cities and additional funding.

Resilient Districts: Feijenoord City Including New City Bridge Development on the district scale is forthcoming in Rotterdam: Feijenoord City. This urban (re)development is linked to the building of the so-called 3rd city bridge. Connecting neighbourhoods between the north and south bank, the bridge is poised to become a symbol of resilience in the city. The expected social resilience will contribute to the city’s goal: Rotterdam, a Balanced Society. One of the challenges is to further develop and apply the resilience scan on this project, which is new regarding scale and timing. Important stakeholders are public and private companies and the University for Applied Sciences.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: The initiative would benefit from a combination of deeper resilience thinking on the project, as well as stakeholder mapping and community centered design. Targeted funding could come from Structural Funds (NSRF 2014-2020, Municipal and Regional Funds, EU funded programmes).

Contact: Arnoud Molenaar, Chief Resilience O�cer | [email protected]

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ATHENS, GREECE

BARCELONA, SPAIN

BELFAST, UK

BELGRADE, SERBIA

BRISTOL, UK

GLASGOW, UK

GREATER MANCHESTER, UK

LISBON, PORTUGAL

LONDON, UK

MILAN, ITALY

PARIS, FRANCE

ROME, ITALY

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

TBILISI, GEORGIA

THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

THESSALONIKI, GREECE

VEJLE, DENMARK

www.100resilientcities.orgContact: [email protected]

100RC’S EUROPEAN NETWORK:

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