Dithering between state aids and self-driven action

For this episode we traveled to Croatia: From Zagreb it takes between one and two hours by car to the much smaller towns of Koprivnica, Varazdin and Virovitica in the North-East of Croatia. It’s in Koprivnica, a city area of 30.000 inhabitants, where today’s guest Ivan Simic lives and works. Ivan is managing director of the Regional Energy Agency North, REAN. The energy agency supports the three city councils which are working hard to build a green and prosperous future for their people. I chatted with Ivan about his current big planning mission of reviewing the cities’ SEAPs. He also explained how communication with city leaders can be improved and why he wants citizens to get on a state aid rehab.

The cities of Koprivnica, Varazdin and Virovitica (counting a bit less than 200.000 inhabitants in total) constantly work hard towards greener solutions in pursuit of energetic independence and aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050. Strategic develop is based on encouraging energy efficiency and use of RES, reducing CO2 emissions towards carbon neutrality and developing and applying innovations.

The EUCityCalc project supports cities in data-driven decision-making: With funding from the EU Horizon 2020 program, the project will release the European City Calculator webtool. This is an open-source instrument with which cities can plan their measures to bring CO2 emissions down to zero.

www.europeancitycalculator.eu