A new Swedish tech startup helps cities go green. It was created by Tomer Shalit, who after having looked at Sweden’s bold new Climate Act, thought there was there were solid, ambitious targets, but no roadmaps for reaching them.
As a consequence, Shalit took it all and transformed it into one four-meter poster showing Sweden’s entire green transition and its constituent parts, presenting them in a way that made sense. Thanks to the help of Sweden’s environment and energy agencies, it went digital and became Panorama – a national climate action plan, on one webpage.
Five years later, Shalit’s poster has become an online tool used now in more than 50 cities such as Helsingborg and Malmö in Sweden, Madrid in Spain, Cincinnati in the US, and Nottingham in the UK.
«Cities account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions» Shalit said. «They are clearly critical to climate action, but they are also complex and highly interconnected systems – and they really lacked the tools to plan and manage their transition».
ClimateOS, the integrated platform developed by Shalit’s Stockholm-based startup, ClimateView, aims to help cities plan and manage their transition to zero carbon by breaking it down into distinct but interconnected “building blocks”.
By combining data-crunching and analytics, these blocks are in effect mini-models, which individually show the effects of a wide range of high- to low-carbon environmental levers, and collectively generate a comprehensive socioeconomic picture.
This tool also allows for assessing the likely consequences of the full range of environmental levers, such as shifting a proportion of city journeys from cars to walking or cycling.
«It will show, of course, the reduction in emissions,” said Shalit. “But also the knock-on effects: the health benefits from cleaner air, for example, as well as from people doing more, and more regular, exercise – such as less heart disease».
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