C40 Cities & Siemens to collaborate on sustainability
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Siemens announce technical partnership and a global prize competition to recognise innovation and efforts towards sustainability.
The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and Siemens have announced a technical partnership and a global prize competition to recognise innovation and efforts towards sustainability in the worlds cities. The move is aimed at boosting C40 city efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
C40 Chair, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, has called for action to address the economic outlook while simultaneously improving sustainability in the worlds cities. The partnership will enable C40 to improve their ability to measure their results more effectively with upgraded data collection.
The partnership will also help cities measure, plan, and mitigate their carbon emissions through the GHG Measurement & Planning Initiative. This is designed to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise and will deploy technical assistance and local capacity building in C40 cities looking to develop greenhouse gas inventories and comprehensive city climate action plans. Additionally, a newly created C40 & Siemens City Climate Leadership Award will annually provide recognition for cities that are demonstrating leadership on climate change challenges.
The Initiative will provide an additional platform for cities to share expertise and build upon the technical assistance and resources already developed by C40 and Siemens. In addition, the Initiative will support joint problem solving by peer cities that are currently working to develop inventories and climate action plans and can benefit from shared approaches to data collection, analysis, and strategic planning.
The C40 & Siemens City Climate Leadership Award will be granted annually in ten categories and will provide global recognition for C40 cities that are demonstrating climate action leadership. Six award categories, including urban transportation, green energy, and sustainable communities, are open to C40 cities only. Four other categories, including resilience, air quality and optimized city infrastructure, are open to C40 cities, and the 120 cities in the Siemens and Economist Intelligence Unit research project 'Green City Index' (GCI). The first Award ceremony will be held in September 2013 in the Crystal, Siemens' Urban Sustainability Center in London.