Urban areas are subject to highly dynamic processes due to spatial concentration, which are further ignited by global megatrends (including technology and climate change). Urban production sites create innovations, jobs and prosperity, but also cause resource and energy flows and trigger permanent construction activities. The actors involved are confronted with new challenges, conflicts and the need for cooperation - economic, ecological as well as social. It is necessary to synergistically combine the already highly developed, resource-efficient adaptation of the individual urban building blocks and to implement additional efficiency potentials for a sustainable factory-city system.
The aim of the project is to increase the resource efficiency of the "city-factory system" by linking resource flows of different polluters, users and producers in a meaningful way (taking into account economic, ecological and social contexts). Together with relevant actors in the city-factory-system, e.g. factory, neighborhood, city administration, fields of conflict and possibilities of cooperation are analyzed and innovation and efficiency potentials are developed by appropriate measures. In particular, measures are pursued and partners are brought together in constellations that only exist in urban areas.
Building on a system understanding of "urban factory" and shared resources (such as soil, knowledge, energy, etc.) developed in the previous project 'Urban Factory', this project will identify further exchange potentials in the areas under consideration in Braunschweig and Wolfsburg. In addition, the goal is to develop decision support for urban actors (especially urban factories) that enables them to identify and subsequently implement measures that are relevant and meaningful to them (i.e., economic, ecological and social). For a successful implementation of the targeted highest possible resource efficiency, an open, flexible network of urban actors will be established, which will collect, re-generate and exchange knowledge through constant communication. This network with "lighthouse character" will be established in the areas of Wolfsburg and Braunschweig. The task of the IWF is to further develop methods and measures to achieve symbiotic exchange relationships (i.e. industrial symbiosis) between the relevant actors in the city-factory system. With the continuous further development of the data basis and the developed approaches in the two model areas, modules for the creation of suitable evaluation and decision-making procedures as well as new methods for communication and visualization can be developed.
Funding: 07/2021-06/2024, within the 7th Energy Research Program of the Federal Government; Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) in the funding area Buildings and Quartiers