The Eurocities podcast

Food and the cities. From policy to plate. Episode 1/9: The Food Trails Project

The transition towards sustainable food systems is a global goal, and cities are at the forefront of this change. The Horizon 2020 Food Trails project showcases how cities can transform practices into impactful food policies, in line with the EU 'Food 2030' strategy.

"If we fail on food, we fail on all” says Linda Scalia.

In this inaugural episode of Food and the Cities, host Natasha Foote interviews Linda Scalia, Deputy Head of Unit for Bioeconomy and Food Systems at the European Commission, and Anna Scavuzzo, Vice Mayor of Milan, in charge of the Food Policy. Milan also lead the Food Trails Consortium.

Together, they discuss:

• How to support the sustainable transition of the EU food system at local and EU levels.
• The EU Food 2030 agenda and its significance for cities.
• Key insights and future prospects from the Food Trails project.

'Food and the Cities' is brought to you by Comune di Milano and Slow Food as part of the EU Horizon 2020 project, Food Trails.

Food Trails is an EU Horizon 2020 project involving 11 cities, 3 universities, and 5 food organizations. Its goal is to promote more resilient, safe, fair, and diverse urban food systems through co-designed actions in Food 2030-led Living Labs, enabling the development of systemic urban food policies.

Useful links:

• Urban food system transformation in the context of Food 2030 – current practice and outlook towards 2030⁠
• Report ⁠Food 2030 Research and Innovation – Pathways for action 2.0⁠
• Living Labs in urban areas for healthy soils
• Eu ‘Food 2030’ research and innovation policy

Follow @Food_Trails on ⁠X⁠ and ⁠Linkedin⁠!

The electromobility podcast - Episode 5 - Electric car-sharing status quo and long-distance adventures in Europe

Let’s take a look at electric mobility from up above and down the ground for the final episode of USER-CHI podcast series.

In this episode, we discuss the availability of electric car sharing all across Europe with Martin Baierl from the Clean Cities Campaign and hear the story of Peter Staelens who took a long-distance trip from Belgium to Italy with its private electric car.

Download the Clean Cities Campaign publication “Thank you for sharing: The state of shared and zero-emission mobility in European cities”.

Covenant of Mayors - Episode 9, Grand Finale

In this final episode of the podcast, Luca Arbau, Max Beijneveld and Alison De Luise reflect on the lessons of the Policy Support Facility. In 2 years of activities, the Policy Support Facility (PSF) programme has collected experiences from around 300 cities and regions around Europe. Developed under the Covenant of Mayors – Europe as one of the main outcomes of the EU Adaptation Strategy, the PSF aimed to support Europe's journey from planning to action in climate adaptation.

Covenant of Mayors - Episode 8: Mining for inspiration

We speak to two climate adaptation experts from the Policy Support Facility, EefJe Henrdiks and Juan Capeáns Amenedo, about the solution they worked on with the Spanish municipality of Cox to help make flooding and drought cancel each other out.

Covenant of Mayors - Episode 7: Barrelling forward in Debrecen

In this episode of the Covenant of Mayors Podcast, we speak to Debrecen and an adaptation expert about how they engaged through the Covenant's policy support facility to come up with a simple idea to tackle flooding.

The electromobility podcast - Episode 4 - Planning for electric charging infrastructure

This episode explores the various factors that city planners and stakeholders consider when deciding where to place charging stations, from socio-demographic criteria to energy grid capacity. How to overcome the challenges associated with determining optimal charging infrastructure locations?

Guests: Eva Sunnerstedt, Project manager for Clean vehicles and fuels at Stockholm City Hall;  Marie Rajon Bernard, researcher from International Council on Clean Transportation and Simon Weekx, PhD student at MOBI Electromobility Research Center. 

Download ICCT working paper: https://theicct.org/publication/efficient-planning-and-implementation-of-public-chargers-lessons-learned-from-european-cities/

Download Master plan for developing electric vehicle charging in Stockholm: https://civitas.eu/sites/default/files/sto_6.6_master_plan_for_developing_electric_vehicle_charging_in_stockholm.pdf 

Find out more: https://www.userchi.eu/ 

Covenant Podcast Episode 6 - Teaming up to adapt

We speak to Pau and Braga about their visits to each other's cities to pick up some great ideas about adaptation, from urban farming to community ownership.

Covenant of Mayors Podcast 5 - Celje on making change a reality

On this episode of the Covenant of Mayors Podcast, we speak with Saša Heath-Drugovič on how her city, Celje, is engaging locally, nationally and on European level to spark sustainable transformation. Saša is the President of the Committee for European Cohesion Policy and International Co-Operation at the Association of Municipalities of Slovenia (ZMOS) and Vice-President of the Expert Committee for Integrated Territorial Investment at the intermediate body Association of Urban Municipalities of Slovenia (PO ZMOS). In here roles she has been at the forefront of Sustainable development in her country Slovenia. Also as an expert in local governmental cooperation she has been instrumental in getting local sustainable initiatives kick-started, amongst them also adaptation actions.

Covenant of Mayors Podcast episode 4 - Thessaloniki adapts

In this episode, we chat with Stella Psaropoulou. Stella has worked as an officer at the Municipality of Thessaloniki for  17 years, and the recent years as a strategic planning and funding management officer at the Department of Operational Planning and Development Programme Monitoring. Since 2016, she has been team member of the Resilient Thessaloniki office and contributed to the launch and implementation of the city’s Resilience Strategy 'Thessaloniki 2030.' Since 2019 she has been the Deputy Chief Resilience officer. She is also the Municipality's Project Coordinator for the Finance Contract with the European Investment Bank and project team member of a number of European funded projects on urban resilience and sustainable development.

Covenant of Mayors episode 3 - Assessing adaptation

Ion Sola Torralba, trained as an environmental engineer and a PhD in Remote Sensing (2010-2016), has focused his professional and academic career on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Currently Ion works as a Project Technician at Nasuvinsa, determining climate change monitoring indicators for the European LIFE-IP-NADAPTA-CC project. The LIFE-IP-NADAPTA-CC project or "Integrated strategy for adaptation to climate change in Navarra" aims to design and implement measures to adapt Navarra to the effects of climate change. As a starting point for this strategy, the region uses a monitoring platform that allows them to assess the territorial impact of the effects of climate change in Navarra.