Combining knowledge and a thorough understanding of sustainable solutions, Iskraemeco and Klappir Green Solutions found a way to tackle global environmental challenges and potentially engage residents and local businesses to co-create a carbon-neutral city.
The partnership came up with the best-awarded Green Penguin idea. The solution is based on the use of smart digital technologies through gamification to achieve environmental and sustainability literacy for children and a substantial reduction of the city’s CO2 footprint. The idea is nominated for the Climathon Global Awards.
Throughout history, cities have been a key driver of change and innovation. But today, they play one of the most important roles in the climate crisis battle, by adopting multiple solutions to mitigate the risks and achieve carbon neutrality.
The City of Ljubljana, together with the CER – Partnership for a Sustainable Economy organised “Climathon”, a hackathon to look for bold ideas for tackling global environmental challenges.
The event, which took place from 10–13 November, was held under the umbrella of Global Climathon, across 145 cities, and lasted for 72 hours. In Ljubljana, 7 creative teams each put their heads together to come up with 1 best idea for further implementation and nomination for the Climathon Global Awards.
The partnership between Iskraemeco and Klappir Green Solutions addressed “Buildings” challenges, defined by the City of Ljubljana.
The development of the idea started by looking at the needs of the city, residents, and other stakeholders and thoroughly analysing them. How can residents and businesses help the city reduce consumption and CO2 emissions? How can we spark interest in increasing energy efficiency and environmental cautiousness? How would you encourage individuals to change their habits?
After 72 hours of brainstorming, researching, calculating, and testing the concept, the Green Penguin idea was born. The solution is based on the use of smart digital technologies through gamification to achieve environmental and digital literacy for children and a substantial reduction in the city’s CO2 footprint.
Social benefits
These kinds of socially and politically charged projects are very important for municipalities for engaging citizens, improving the quality of living, changing behaviour, and taking steps forward towards a carbon-neutral city. The general public will benefit from environmental literacy taught to children (both digitalisation & the environmental aspects). Furthermore, businesses will get a great opportunity to exercise their corporate and social responsibility with good media coverage and reputational bonuses, while at the same time reducing environmental emissions.
Environmental benefits
After the solution implementation, we will see a reduction in electricity, water, heat, and gas consumption, and lower waste emissions, all bringing contributing to lowering the CO2 footprint, and making efficiency improvements.
Last, but not least, financial benefits.
The municipality will get upfront, accurate reporting, consumption profiles on different public buildings, and see the areas for improvement and potential savings.
The best part of the idea is that the approach could apply to the city infrastructure as a whole.
With these impacts and benefits presented during the idea pitch, the multidisciplinary jury selected “Green penguin” as the Climathon Ljubljana winning team, underlining other strong features of the idea:
- meeting the goals of global sustainable development with an emphasis on sustainable cities and communities;
- being innovative and practical at the same time;
- taking into account the advantages of the city of Ljubljana;
- introducing an idea that can be further developed and is synchronised with city & EU strategies.
About the City of Ljubljana:
Like many cities around the world, Ljubljana faces many challenges on the way to a carbon-neutral goal. For Climathon, three main areas were defined:
- Buildings. The goal is to achieve the greatest possible annual savings in heat, water, gas, and electricity, which, in turn, has an effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- The goal is to improve the quality of life by focusing on reducing the use of passenger cars, promoting the use of public transport and non-motorised means of transport, and reducing high levels of emissions and noise in traffic and congestion.
- Green city. The goal is to create and implement ideas on how to encourage residents, companies, and all other stakeholders to green private and public areas.
About Iskraemeco:
For seven decades, Iskraemeco has been delivering quality products, solutions, and services that make efficient water and energy use a reality. Our clients get all the necessary tools to manage consumption, anticipate demand, and optimise costs. It also helps consumers act more sustainably.
We are a global company with a local presence in Slovenia, Argentina, India, Dubai, Egypt, the Benelux countries, and the Netherlands. We have currently 9 production facilities in various countries worldwide. In 2007, Iskraemeco joined forces with Elsewedy Electric. By joining the Elsewedy group, Iskraemeco acquired a valuable business partner and unprecedented opportunities for growth and development.
About Klappir Green Solutions:
Klappir is an Icelandic software company listed on the Nasdaq First North market that empowers businesses, municipalities, investors, and governments to work systematically toward improved sustainability. Since its beginnings in 2014, Klappir’s sustainability solutions have been put into practice by over 350 organisations in 18 countries across Europe, North America and Asia. With an emphasis on the automation of data collection and processing, the assortment of Klappir’s solutions form a unique, collaborative overall solution in the fields of sustainability management, reporting, and compliance. Our long-term objective is to bring knowledge and cost-efficient sustainability solutions to the global market. In doing so, we help to protect, sustain, and enhance natural resources for the future.
Public Relations Contact
Iskraemeco company
Smilja Dolgan Paternoster
Smilja.DolganPaternoster@iskraemeco.com
