EUSBSR Policy Area Innovation is actively promoting its new initiative on ‘Collaborative BSR Decarbonization’. The initiative brings together BSR cities participating in the EU missions for climate-neutral and smart cities and climate adaptation, and promotes and fasilitates joint climate actions between the cities. The goal is also to promote cross-macro-regional cooperation on climate issues.

The current strong EU climate policy and ambitious climate goals of BSR cities, regions and companies provide an excellent framework for jointly addressing climate-related challenges in BSR. Despite the importance of locally specific geographical conditions and contexts within BSR, there are sufficient climate and cultural similarities to offer BSR a unique opportunity to become a role model for decarbonization and climate change adaptation. In the EUSBSR, this opportunity underlines the importance of cross-sectoral/policy area collaboration on climate related EU missions, and a strong strategic approach, partnerships and coordinated efforts for successful macro-regional utilisation and attraction of related new EU funding opportunities. There is a need to deepen and scale-up acceleration mechanisms in the framework of EUSBSR - towards a ‘collaborative decarbonization and climate change adaptation’ integrative approach to systemic and cross-sectoral innovations, specifically on city level.

The initiative especially focuses on the contribution of and cooperation opportunities between BSR cities under the EU missions ‘100 Climate-neutral and Smart Cities by 2030’ and ‘Adaptation to Climate Change’. Forerunner cities are currently defining their road maps for carbon neutrality through the climate city contracts that include ambitious development projects and the investments necessary to reach the target. The EU Member State ministries and funding agencies provide funding to support these ambitions. Whereas strong backing and interest for collaboration exists, BSR climate/mission collaborations have yet to be fully supported with closer macro-regional coordination and bolder collaborative projects.

As the first concrete result of the initiative and with the joint support from PA INNO and PA Nutri, ‘City Blues’, a joint project between five EU climate missions cities, led by City of Tampere, Finland, was approved in the 2^nd call of Interreg BSR. Key phase 1 activities of the initiative in 2023 also included dialogue and planning with other EUSBSR policy areas, EU cities and climate mission city interviews (Tampere, Malmö, Aarhus, Tartu, Liepaja), identifying new project concepts, evaluation of funding opportunities and workshops in connection with EUSBSR Annual Forum 2023 in Riga and WALCC forum in Vaasa.

Collaborative pilot themes were identified in phase 1 especially on climate adaptation (concrete issue regarding wastewater decarbonization ecosystem development), mobility (affecting behavior, promoting modal shift to public transport, cycling, walking; supporting SMEs in the transportation sector to better address decarbonization, calculation) and housing renovation investments (cascading funding to enable privately owned housing to address decarbonization; supporting energy communities and novel scalable energy efficient solutions).

A key focus of the initiative phase 2 activities in 2024 is to facilitate the initiation and development of BSR cities -led proposals and consortia in connection with the EU climate and cities mission related Horizon Europe calls in 2024, as well as in connection with the ongoing 3rd call of Interreg BSR.