URBAN INNOVATION FORUM
The City & The Buildings
23th April 2013, Sofia Event Center
PART ONE: The CITY
By 2050, more than 6 billion people will live in urban areas. This development calls for ‘smart’ approaches to ensure that cities are optimized for economic activity, energy consumption, environmental impact and improved quality of life.
Growing cities across the world face the challenge of combining competitiveness and sustainable urban development. Over the next 20 years, the equivalent of 7 cities with more than 10 million people will be added every year. As a result, cities make up a large part of the world population and contribute disproportionately to the global economy. Cities contribute to climate change and in turn are affected by their consequences.
An expanding number of large cities face significant energy, environmental and climate-related challenges now and in the future. To solve these challenges, they need to become more resource efficient, consumer-focused and technology-driven.
A sustainable and smart city combines technological issues with societal dimensions such as:
PART TWO: The BUILDINGS
Smart buildings for “smart” cities
The buildings are playing an important role for the energy efficiency – they consume 40% from the energy, 75% of it are for heating and cooling and only 25% are for hot water, electricity and electric devices. There is only one reason – bad isolation. It is time to react because the buildings are a key factor for the climate change control and the consumption of energy.
In The European Union 2/3 from the energy is used for heating and cooling and every year 270 billion are spent because of the lack of energy efficiency.
If the buildings are energy effective, 3.3 millions barrels of petrol can be saved every day. Every year 460 millions tons of emissions CO2 can be avoided trough energy efficiency measures. 530,000 new work places can be created if we follow the ambitious strategy for energy efficiency improvement of the buildings.
At the year 2030 the consumption of air conditioners will be treble. The most of this energy is lost because of insufficient isolation. With the potential economy of 6 billions tons of emissions the buildings are the main source of energy savings.
Programme THE CITY 2013:
General sponsor:
Golden sponsor:
With the support of:
Organizer:
Partners: