On 28-29 February 2024, ATELIER’s sister project Stardust hosted its Final Conference in its Lighthouse City Pamplona. With this event, the project comes to an end after six years of work on climate neutrality in cities. The event involved keynote speeches, panel discussion, technical site visits and a lot of opportunities to exchange on the lessons learnt and results of the Stardust project.
ATELIER partners Frans Verspeek (Lighthouse City Amsterdam, ATELIER project coordinator), Omar Shafqat (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), Jon Gonzalez (Lighthouse City Bilbao and Jesús Ma Casado (EVE) attended the event in Pamplona. Omar Shafqat shares his three key takeaways and lessons learnt:
- Intervention should align with the long term strategic vision of cities for more impact and scalability.
- Energy transition must be economically viable. Innovative business models need to be identified, tested and validated so that demos actions can be implemented and replicated in a non-subsidised scenario.
- Involve citizens from the earliest stages of the project is essential, not only informing them of what is to be done but allowing them to take part in decisions and express their views on what the city needs and how to achieve it.
More information on the Stardust project and the Final Conference programme can be found here: Successes, challenges and lessons from a Smart City project: STARDUST two-day final conference opens in Pamplona – Stardust (stardustproject.eu)
