25Q in Copenhagen
#4 / C40 World Mayors Summit / October 2019
From 9 to 11 October 2019 the cones were installed with a new set of questions in the Copenhagen City Hall for the ‘Live Like Tomorrow’ festival.
Throughout these days, we collected more 2506 data points from people interacting with the installation.
‘Live Like Tomorrow’ was the host city festival for the C40 World Mayors Summit 2019, which welcomed everyone from citizens and change makers, to food activists, bike enthusiasts, social entrepreneurs, NGOs and innovative companies.
The 25 cones were placed in the City Hall, which was open to the public throughout the festival and for Culture Night, one of the highest attended culture-related events in Copenhagen.
To ensure that the installation was relevant to the topics being discussed at the summit, the new questions were designed in collaboration with Interactive Spaces Urban Studio, C40, the Municipality of Copenhagen, and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in a workshop held at Arup Denmark. Each question was designed as a debate starter, and to understand general opinion on the different topics.
The overall themes were:
· Air quality
· Energy consumption and generation
· Personal consumption, e.g. waste, food, clothing
· Buildings, construction, housing
· Mobility
You can still share your opinion on each of the 25Q for Sustainable Cities online here.
If you're Danish, you can also find a Danish translation of the 25 Questions for Sustainable Cities here: Dansk oversættelse.
Pictures from the C40 Mayor's Summit in Copenhagen
Lessons from the C40 Summit
During a rainy week in mid-October, Copenhagen filled with researchers, businesses and policy makers, as well as the mayors from 95 cities, for the triennial C40 Mayors Summit in Copenhagen. Live Like Tomorrow, the host city festival, engaged the public and visitors alike with talks, tours, exhibitions on climate, culminating in the People’s Climate March.
We at Arup were on the ground at the summit, moderating a liveability session in the Cities and Business forum, workshopping energy solutions for cities like Helsinki, and exchanging experience and inspiration to collectively push the C40 cities into a healthy, inclusive and resilient future.
As renowned policy makers and leaders discussed how to improve air quality, mobility and waste management to accelerate cities towards achieving the Paris Agreement targets, we were taking the temperature of the public with our installation prototype, 25 Questions for Sustainable Cities.
Data collected from 2000 responses
Together with Interactive Spaces Urban Studio, we collected over 2000 responses through the week, primarily from Copenhagen locals, who flooded through the doors of the Town Hall at the end of the summit for Copenhagen’s annual Culture Night.
The opposing statements on climate and cities led to both silent pondering and animated discussions around the cones, which invited opinions on topics from weekly car-free days, to whether data on individuals’ carbon footprints should be collected by governments.
Our initial findings show people were split close to 50/50 on whether showers should be limited to five minutes during peak consumption times, and whether community kitchen gardens belong on both public and private property.
So far, 84% of people agree that incorrect sorting of waste should lead to a fine, and that 90% of people agree that only zero-emission vehicles should be allowed in cities to keep the air clean.
It's terrific to see that initiatives such as zero-emission zones are gaining almost full support. But how can these be implemented in practice – not just for Copenhagen, but for all cities? How do we make sure citizens and businesses are fully active and engaged while such changes are taking place? How do we ensure that the process of change is inclusive and equal?