The 10th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns (ESCT) will take place on 1-3 October in Aalborg, Denmark. All cities, partners and experts seeking to contribute to the sustainable transformation of our cities and regions are cordially invited to attend the 2024 edition of European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns, which also marks the 30th Anniversary of the Aalborg Charter (1994) and the 20th Anniversary of the Aalborg Commitments (2004).

Across Europe, cities and towns of all sizes are developing Local Green Deals, as a response to the European Green Deal. The European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns - also called Aalborg2024 - will take a closer look at the ongoing trends, challenges and opportunities that define these Local Green Deals, and ask how we can become powerful enablers of sustainable, local change.

Participants can expect a fertile environment for tackling the most pressing questions, leading to discussions, knowledge-sharing and problem-solving. The Conference aims to inspire and motivate participants to further develop connections made at all levels at the conference, and to put plans into practice, to realise an integrated response to the climate crisis. Together, let’s make the EU Green Deal a reality on the local level!

The city of Aalborg and Aalborg 2024 both boast a legacy of positive impact; a three-time host to the conference, Aalborg continues to inspire change and innovation across Europe. In past years, governance tools such as Local Green Deals and Climate City Contracts have been developed to help local and regional governments bring stakeholders together and integrate their ambitions. Aalborg 2024 will look at local experiences with these tools so far and will explore what support is needed from EU decision makers in 2024.

Aalborg 2024 will maintain its characteristic informative, open, and interactive ambiance, upholding its 'PowerPoint free' format. Participants are enthusiastically invited to share their experiences and perspectives on an array of topics that delve into the challenges inherent in innovating to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises.

More information on Aalborg 2024, including on the programme and how to register, can be found at the Conference website

Leitat, one of Spain's leading technology centres, Acció, the Catalan Agency for Business Competitiveness, and the Provincial Council of Barcelona are excited to bring together cities, start-ups, companies, universities and technology centres for 2 days of inspiring keynote talks, panel discussions, and networking opportunities through their Innovation Marketplace and targeted matchmaking for the upcoming City Mission and city-related CL5 Horizon Europe calls.

This on-site event is financed by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and the AEI, the Spanish Agency for promoting scientific and technical research and organised with the support of the Enterprise Europe Network, the largest business support network worldwide.

Whether you're looking for using innovation procurement to tackle local needs and drive the green transition, innovative solutions that match these needs, new markets for your cutting-edge innovations or concrete matchmaking opportunities for Horizon Europe funding, this event is for you.

Register now to secure your spot for this event in Barcelona! Places to this on-site event are limited and registrations will be accepted until 13 September 2024.

Highlights of the event include:

Innovation Marketplace:

• As a company/start-up, showcase your innovative solutions and present them to local public buyers for reaching new markets.
  Join the virtual info session for companies/start-ups on 10 September at 10.00-10.30 CET using this link.
• As a local administration, get to know leading-edge solutions stemming from Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe projects for meeting your local needs.
• As a university/research and technology organisation, bridge the gap between the development of innovative solutions and their uptake.

Matchmaking event: Meet new partner organisations for the upcoming Horizon City Mission calls and the city-related CL5 calls.

Especially for Municipalities: You can request free-of-charge technical assistance to cities by the Smart Cities Marketplace: Book a bilateral meeting with the Smart Cities Team (clicking on “Marketplace” and filtering “Project Cooperation” opportunities for “Free-of-charge technical assistance to cities by the Smart Cities Marketplace").

Inspiration and access to frontrunners: Get inspired by our keynote speakers and acknowledged panellists for learning about success cases of innovation uptake by and with the local public sector and about valuable insights from vanguard City Mission projects.

To use public procurement more effectively, it is crucial to measure and monitor the outcomes of public procurement procedures. The third EU GPP Helpdesk webinar of 2024 will analyse tools and techniques to effectively monitor and measure public procurement performance.

From life-cycle assessment tools to public procurement monitoring systems, this webinar will discuss the different methods that European Institutions, procurement experts, Member States and cities are using to measure the impact of public procurement. It will also explore how cost-savings, reduced pollution, positive social outcomes of public purchases can be measured and assessed, and feature best practice examples from across Europe.

Programme

• Welcome and introduction from the EU GPP Helpdesk, Anna Lupi, Legal and policy officer, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
• Sharmila Erizaputri, researcher on Green Public Procurement, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) on the Monitoring Progress in Green Public Procurement report
• Greta Ambrutytė, Head of the Sustainable Procurement department, Office of Public Procurement of the Republic of Lithuania on the development of an SRPP and the GPP Scoreboard
• Matej Cerovšek, Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy of Slovenia on the LIFE IP CARE4CLIMATE project, and the comprehensive analysis of the environmental, economic and social impacts of green public procurement in Slovenia.

To register for the webinar, click here

The conference is accredited as an official event of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. It will be opened by Mr. János Bóka, Minister of EU Affairs. The conference will focus on the following topics:

• issues of increasing public procurement competition
• evaluation of European Union public procurement, the future of public procurement
• green public procurement: current sectoral EU legislation
• introduction of the public procurement authorities of the EU candidate states in the Western Balkans
• current decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union and their impact on domestic legal practice

The full programme of the conference can be found here.

To register, click here

This webinar will explore the impactful role of public procurement in reducing CO2 emissions within urban environments. It is part of ICLEI Europe's webinar series, targeted at its members (local and regional governments across Europe), highlighting how European cities are taking practical measures to make sustainability a reality. 

Public procurement is the process by which public authorities, such as government departments or local authorities acquire goods, services and works, and holds tremendous potential to influence market trends and drive sustainable practices. By incorporating sustainable public procurement (SPP) strategies, cities can significantly reduce their carbon footprints, promote green innovation, and set powerful examples.

The webinar will emphasise the importance of public procurement in meeting environmental objectives, showcase real-world examples from ICLEI members who have successfully included carbon-reducing clauses in their public procurement strategies and activities, and provide actionable insights for local governments looking to adopt and enhance SPP practices.

Programme

11.00: Welcome - Grace Sly, ICLEI Europe
11.05: Introduction to Sustainable Public Procurement - Dominique Sandy, Head of Sustainable and Innovation Procurement, ICLEI Europe
11.15: City Presentation, Municipality of Copenhagen - Lisbet Tegllund, Chief consultant, Economic Administration
11.30: City Presentation, Municipality of Utrecht - Lieske Jonge - Oostveen, Purchasing Advisor Socially Responsible Commissioning and Purchasing
11.45: Q&A
11.55: Wrap-up - Grace Sly, ICLEI Europe

The webinar is open to ICLEI members, Procura+ participants and Circular City Declaration signatories. To register, click here

This session, led by Valentina Schippers-Opejko, Chair of the Eurocities Work Group Public Procurement, is hosted in the context of the Eurocities Economic Development Forum, taking place in Bilbao (Spain) from 23-25 October.

The session will introduce the upcoming action plan of the Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement. Furtermore the session will also discuss opportunities for Eurocities members to contribute to expected revision of the EU Public Procurement Directive and opportunities of Strategic and Innovation Public Procurement in the upcoming period.

Eurocities' Economic Development Forum aims to advance the conversation on more sustainable and resilient cities via the interaction of three axes: people (skill development and talent attraction), space (urban innovation districts, tactical urbanism), and economy (innovative procurement, local entrepreneurship, and EU funding).

To register. click here

Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), the leading international event on cities and smart urban solutions organized by Fira de Barcelona will hold its biggest edition to date in 2024. Under the theme “Live Better” the show and congress will experience a 30% growth of the exhibition floorspace from the record-setting 2023 event. The summit held every year in Barcelona expects to host 1.100 exhibitors, 850 cities and over 25.000 attendees from November 5-7 and will spread over halls 2 and 3 of Fira’s Gran Via venue.

The event will focus on strategies to transform current metropolises into more sustainable, efficient, and livable spaces bringing together leading companies from around the world to showcase the latest solutions and technologies enabling cities to become more efficient in areas such as mobility, public services, utilities, citizen engagement and sustainability.

Along these lines, SCEWC will gather over 600 speakers and international experts in its congress to share the latest experiences and breakthroughs in urban transformation in a conference program structured around eight main tracks: Enabling Technologies, Energy & Environment, Mobility, Governance, Living & Inclusion, Economy, Infrastructure & Buildings, and Safety & Security.

The 2024 Electronics Watch Annual Conference, "Public Procurement and the Evolving Due Diligence Landscape", will take place from 6-7 November in Brussels, Belgium. It is co-hosted by the Flemish Agency for Facility Operations (Het Facilitair Bedrijf), with support from the Flemish Government.

The Annual Conference facilitates learning and exchange at the intersection of socially responsible public procurement and labour rights, and provides a unique opportunity for Electronics Watch affiliates and monitoring partners to meet face-to-face. It will raise awareness about the issues workers are facing, and how they can be addressed through the public procurement process.

Programme

Wednesday, 6 November 2024

(The morning sessions are open to external, invited guests.)
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome
9:30 – 11:00 The evolving regulatory landscape: a revolution or a missed opportunity?
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 Accountability for business harms: stories from workers' rights defenders from the mines to the factories
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
(The remainder of the agenda is restricted to affiliates and monitoring partners)
14:00 – 15:30 Expectations, realities, and trade-offs: conversations with monitoring partners and public buyers
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 – 17:30 Collective leverage in action
17:30 – 18:00 Closing remarks

Thursday, 7 November 2024

9:00 – 10:30 Public procurement innovation: updates from affiliates
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30 Simulation game
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Obtaining credible evidence with limited access: updates from monitoring partners
15:30 – 15:45 Coffee break
15:45 – 16:30 Wrap-up and thanks

For more information, and to register click here

Maltese public authorities, SMEs and social economy entities are invited to take part in a training organised as part of the WeBuySocialEU capacity-building efforts. The training will take place in Valletta on 18 November and will be delivered in Maltese. It is designed to help stakeholders not only gain much-needed expertise in socially responsible public procurement but also to establish participants as the go-to person within their organisation for advice and expertise in this increasingly important field. The training is specifically tailored to professional and particular contexts, thanks to in-depth research and interviews conducted by national experts in autumnn 2023.

As a policymaker or public procurer you will discover best practice examples from other EU countries, how to design tendering procedures that include social criteria, and how to engage social enterprises in procurement procedures.
As a social enterprise or SME you will learn how to bid for public contracts that include social requirements, how to form successful consortia with other businesses, and meet social requirements.

The training takes place in the context of the European Commission's WeBuySocialEU initiative, which seeks to enhance social responsibility in public procurement by building capacity and awareness across the EU. At the end of the training public authorities should have more knowledge on how to design tendering procedures that are accessible to the social economy and include social aspects, while social economy enterprises will be able to better compete for public tenders that include social considerations.

Interested participants can apply for the training here. Selected participants (the training is only open for stakeholders from Malta!) wll be informed by e-mail. As spots for this training are being allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible!

The European Commission training workshop in Malta is organised by ICLEI Europe in cooperation with Local Councils' Association Malta. More information about the initiative can be found here.

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (the Netherlands) is organising a webinar on how the two recent reports by former Commissioner Enrico Letta and former ECB head Mario Draghi could contribute to changes in the EU's approach to the internal market. Such changes could carry major implications for public procurement professionals.

Letta's report notes that the internal market was "born in a smaller world" and calls for "a fifth freedom" on research, innovation and education, highlighting the need to strengthen the EU towards the rest of the world. Draghi's report states that the foundations on which the internal market have been shaken and focusses on innovation, decarbonization, security and reducing dependencies. Both reports contain concrete proposals to change the way in which the internal market operates. 

The webinar aims to provide an initial understanding of the implications of the Letta and Draghi reports for the functioning of multiple fields of EU law, and to discuss the potential future positive effects and negative implications of the proposals to change the functioning of the internal market. It will focus on questions such as: what will be the effect of these changes to how we regulate competitive markets?; will the room to give state aid within the EU increase?; how will the external relations between the EU and the outside world change, given the stronger call for strategic autonomy?; where will we note changes into how consumers are protected inside and outside the EU?

For more information on the webinar, and to register, click here