Case Study: Reconciling diverse stakeholders · Climate-KIC is the EU’s largest public private...

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The Municipal Utilities Dialogue in Berlin

Case Study:

Reconciling diverse stakeholders

Reconciling heterogeneous stakeholders: The Municipal Utilities Dialogue in Berlin

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Contents Metropolitan Utilities Dialogue ....................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 4

The Model Vision, goals and objectives................................................................................................. 5

Assignment 1: Definition of Problems and Objectives ...................................................................... 7

Local Context ............................................................................................................................................... 8

Assignment 2: Stakeholder Analysis 1 ................................................................................................ 10

Market Liberalisation and Competition ............................................................................................... 11

Stakeholders’ Climate Change Commitments ................................................................................... 11

Assignment 3: Stakeholder Analysis 2 ................................................................................................ 12

Citizens Engagement ............................................................................................................................... 13

M.U.D. Organizational, Structure and Resourcing ............................................................................. 14

Development and Barriers ..................................................................................................................... 16

Contractual Agreement .................................................................................................................................................. 16

Time and Resource Constraints .................................................................................................................................. 16

Local Awareness .............................................................................................................................................................. 17

Assignment 4: Stakeholder Universe and Resourcing ..................................................................... 18

Epilogue ...................................................................................................................................................... 19

Lessons learned by project partners ......................................................................................................................... 21

Imprint................................................................................................................................................................. 22


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About Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC is the EU’s largest public private partnership addressing climate change through

innovation to build a zero carbon economy. We address climate change across four priority

themes: urban areas, land use, production systems, climate metrics and finance. Education is at

the heart of these themes to inspire and empower the next generation of climate leaders. We run

programmes for students, start-ups and innovators across Europe via centres in major cities,

convening a community of the best people and organisations. Our approach starts with

improving the way people live in cities. Our focus on industry creates the products required for a

better living environment, and we look to optimise land use to produce the food people need.

Climate-KIC is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of

the European Union.

http://www.climate-kic.org

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How easy is it to work with strategic partners to set a trajectory for a low carbon

future with a city? At a workshop in Berlin in 2012 the city’s local authority and

infrastructure providers recognised the potential impact they could have in reducing

CO2 and GHG emissions. This, they agreed, would require a new innovative approach

to city planning with integrated urban systems and effective collaborations between

municipal services.

A low carbon future could be achieved by implementing new technologies, expanding services to

accommodate population growth and through the effective repair and maintenance of existing

infrastructure. The workshop identified that a new transitional structure needed to be

established to facilitate integrated approaches across city services and urban planning and

development. This was how the concept for the Metropolitan Utilities Dialogue (M.U.D.) came

about.

This case study module explores the political, social and business context for the project, partner

motivations for engagement, the organizational structure and team composition adopted, as well

as legal and financial aspects which acted as key challenges. It also highlights factors that

influenced decision making during the process, facilitated or hindered progress, or required a

change in direction or a flexibility approach to respond to unfolding circumstances. Finally, the

case study will share various “exit strategy” models that were pursued to continue the alliance

after the initial project came to an end.

Introduction

Following on from the 2012 workshop, the Director of Climate-KIC approached the CEOs of the

five leading infrastructure providers and asked for their endorsement of the M.U.D. concept.

Whilst there was no formal arrangement such as a memorandum of understanding (MOU), each

utility company committed one senior-person to participate in the project. One motivating factor

for engagement was the fact no one wanted to miss out when its competitors had committed to

engage.

The M.U.D. was initiated and funded by Climate-KIC between May 2012 to December 2014.

Described as a multi-sector innovation platform, the M.U.D. project involved an informal coalition

of comprised of Berlin’s leading infrastructure providers. These included:

Metropolitan Utilities Dialogue

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• An electricity company: Vattenfall, the leading electricity utility in Berlin.

• A gas company: GASAG, the leading gas utility.

• A water company: Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB), the leading water and wastewater

utility.

• A waste company: Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), the leading waste management utility.

• A transportation firm: Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG).

The project’s central objective was to share, learn and co-develop initiatives that would

encourage a low carbon city. In this sense, the project was seen as a pilot, paving the way for

future initiatives, networks, and collaborations and acting as a blueprint for other urban areas.

The Model Vision, goals and objectives

The vision of the M.U.D. was to co-create an integrated utilities model to promote low carbon city

planning. Through knowledge exchange and integrated project development, the M.U.D. project,

would offer a new model for stimulating climate protection measures amongst the city’s leading

utilities and transportation authority.

The overarching goal was to stimulate and promote low carbon innovations within the utilities to

(a) better achieve the climate goals of the city and (b) position Berlin as an international best

practice model for climate protection. The alliance specified the following primary goals and

objectives to:

1. Facilitate knowledge exchange amongst the city utilities to:

a. Learn from each other about best practice, challenges and considerations to effectively

manage city infrastructure and meet climate goals.

b. Identify synergies across utilities for possible project collaboration

2. Establish a new sustainable model of cross-sectoral collaboration at a neighbourhood-level

demonstration site by:

a. Co-designing a project that integrated all city systems, that was scalable and replicable.

b. Entering into direct dialogue with local stakeholders using co-creation and achieving buy-

in to accelerate the uptake of climate-ready products and services.

c. Providing a new sustainable model of cross-sectoral collaboration for the development of

existing (brown field) neighbourhoods within districts.

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3. Ensuring policy impact, raising political awareness of the role and strategic impact utilities

influence in driving innovations in urban design and planning as well as infrastructure.

Several secondary goals and objectives were also identified:

1. To increase innovativeness within utilities by:

a. Introducing and testing new methodologies, tools and business models.

b. Leveraging the creative and innovation power of students.

c. Sharing innovation management processes amongst utilities.

2. Stimulate new markets by:

a. Developing and testing new product and service offerings.

b. Expanding the demand-side market (connecting Climate-KIC start-ups to potential

customers such as utilities, businesses and city authorities).

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Assignment 1: Definition of Problems and Objectives

In groups of ideally 3-6 people,

a) please define the problem systematically, e.g. framing it as a Pentagonal Problem;

b) please describe the actors’ respective roles and relevance precisely, for instance by

applying the Actor Tree method;

c) please do some preliminary systematization of vision, goals and objectives using

backcasting tools, such as the Cover Story method.

d) In your group’s view, which of the project’s goals/objectives are more concrete,

tangible or measurable? Please identify the top three goals/objectives in terms of their

precision etc using e.g. the Future Radars method.

e) Which goals are less tangible or precise? Please identify the top 3 of these and think

about ways how can you still might monitor these subsequently? You might also use

the Future Radars tool for this task.

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Local Context

The city-state of Berlin sought to reduce its CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030. By 2010, it had

already reduced emissions from 30 to 21 million tons with an ultimate goal of becoming climate

neutral by 2050.

The city approved its first urban climate development plan (StEP Klima) in 2011. The initial focus

was on improving energy efficiency in buildings. This involved refurbishment programs combined

with targeted district urban development and regeneration programs. Since the plan was

approved there was greater political emphasis, matched with funded initiatives to address

climate change in a broader city development context.

However, the notion of an integrated climate protection policy was a new concept and only

started to gain momentum after the integrated approach of the M.U.D. was conceptualized and

launched in May 2012. In 2014 the city announced the results of its Climate Neutral 2050

feasibility study and published its Urban Development Plan 2030. It also approved the “Berlin

Energiewende” law providing the legal framework to support its climate neutrality goals. While

admirable, these and other policy initiatives were not developed in an integrated fashion, but in

parallel by different city government departments to the degree that it was not always clear how

the policies linked to or reinforced one another.

This was exacerbated by electoral cycles while policy is set at the city-state level, it is the

districts or boroughs that are charged with implementing the measures locally. The districts

however lacked the capacity and finance to execute these measures. At the same time a number

of community groups and district authorities (boroughs) developed their own local climate

policies in isolation reduce CO2 further complicating the situation. The result was a series of

unconnected policies.

Utilities are not only service providers, but also buyers of new technology and investors in city

infrastructure. It is estimated that globally, cities will need to invest €90 trillion to update

outdated city infrastructure over the next 15 years (2015-2030)1. With diminishing public-sector

resources and squeezed consumer salaries – it was felt measures like M.U.D. clearly had a place

in seeking to identify low carbon solutions.

Despite the fact that cities of the future will require integrated and hybrid (that is a combination

of decentralized and centralized) solutions, Berlin’s current municipal procurement and budget

financing structures were still working within a traditional framework of separate construction

contracts and budgets. This inhibited an integrated approach to utilities procurement and this

was compounded by the fact infrastructure services budgets remained siloed within

departments.

1 http://newclimateeconomy.report/2014/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/Infrastructure-investment-needs-of-a-low-carbon-

scenario.pdf

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Another barrier related to an inability of innovative start-up firms to bid for municipal

procurement contracts due to minimum requirements on the age of the companies worked with.

This made it difficult to test new product demonstrations or purchase market ready innovations

from young start-ups even if these solutions may offer more cost effective and efficient

solutions. That said some grants, support services and investment loans were available to

support such measures.

In the case of the M.U.D. pilot, the primary costs were for project management and collaboration

facilitation and the financial support from the European Institute for Innovation and Technology

(EIT) via Climate-KIC.

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Assignment 2: Stakeholder Analysis 1


a) please discuss and try to learn as much about this stakeholder as possible, ideally using

the Enlarged Empathy method;

b) please discuss, what were the results “on the ground”, at the local level?

c) Building on that, characterize the city council’s position in relation to the challenge and

outline the implications and potential challenges of this situation for the PM. You may use

the Credential Cards tool for this exercise.

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Market Liberalisation and Competition

A round of market liberalization began around 2000 in Berlin and it became one of the most

competitive energy markets in Germany. According to the tariff comparative portal “Toptarif”, in

2013, there were 90 gas suppliers and 143 energy suppliers. That said, Vattenfall and GASAG

dominated with approximately 90% of the electricity market and 78% of the gas market

respectively. The waste management utility BSR also produced energy through its CHP energy

solutions and recently the BWB waterworks entered the energy market as the city’s only public

renewable energy provider. So, four of the six M.U.D. partners were very active in the local

energy market.

At the beginning of the M.U.D. pilot, the water utility (BWB) had a hybrid ownership model. The

city held 50.1% of its shares and the remaining 49.9% was held by two private companies (RWE

and Veolia). Due to increased pressure to re-municipalize the waterworks, the city bought back

the RWE shares in 2012 and the Veolia shares in 2013. Then in 2014, following a referendum on

energy provision, BWB entered the energy market as the city government created a new entity

for renewable energy (and corresponding pipeline network), delegating it as subsidiary of the

Berlin waterworks.

Another unique ownership model operated between the gas utility (GASAG) and Vattenfall. The

latter owned a third of GASAG’s shares meaning one competitor in the Berlin utility sector was a

shareholder of the other. Initially they focused on two separate markets (gas and electricity).

However, during the lifetime of the M.U.D. pilot, each company launched new products into the

core market of each other.

Finally, during the last year of the pilot the local gas concessions were up for renewal. The city

decided not to renew the contract with the incumbent, GASAG, and awarded the rights to a newly

created utility firm housed within the City Planning and Environment Department. The decision

was successfully challenged in the courts and caused considerable uncertainty. In the meantime,

the original executive who committed GASAG to become involved in the M.U.D. pilot was no

longer with the company. Therefore, due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, the gas utility

was “inactive” during the final nine months of the M.U.D. pilot.

Stakeholders’ Climate Change Commitments

The key municipal actors implementing practical climate change solutions were the municipal

energy (Vattenfall), transportation (BVG), water/wastewater (BWB), and waste management

service providers (BSR) as well as commercial and residential real estate companies. They signed

a voluntary climate-protection commitment with the city to reduce CO2 emissions.

• Vattenfall, Berlin’s leading electricity utility in Berlin, entered a voluntary climate

protection agreement with the city in 2009. As a consequence of a transparent process

overseen by the German Emissions Trading Authority, Vattenfall’s average of 7.6 million

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tons of CO2 produced per year (during 2006-2008) was reduced by 0.3 million tons.

Savings were achieved through the modernization of production facilities and increased

usage of district heating and natural gas combined with biofuel production.

• GASAG, the leading gas utility signed its first voluntary climate protection contract with

the city in 1998. Since then, it has saved more than 1.1 million tons of CO2. Having signed

the fourth contract covering 2011-2020, GASAG plans to save an additional 0.9 million

tons by 2020. This represents some 8% of the city’s CO2 emissions based on the

estimated 25 million tons of CO2 that Berlin produced by burning gas in 1998. Savings

would be achieved through an increased use of energy efficient technologies such as

natural gas, a decentralized energy supply, micro- and mini-Combined Heat and Power

and the expansion of renewable energy.

• Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB), the leading water and wastewater utility, is responsible

for 1% of the city’s CO2 emissions. It signed a voluntary climate protection agreement in

2008 and has exceeded its targets by optimizing its energy use in the delivery of drinking

water and wastewater treatment, using more renewable energy sources and producing

energy from wastewater.

• Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), the leading waste management utility, entered its first

voluntary climate protection agreement with the city in 2007 and extended this to 2015.

It covered a broad range of initiatives covering fleet, facilities and energy production from

biomass.

The Senator for Urban Development and Environment, summarized the important role of utilities

and companies: “The climate protection agreements are an important instrument of our climate

and energy policy. We would never be able to reach our ambitious goals without the efforts of

Berlin companies – because climate protection is a community task.” The M.U.D. alliance sought

to build on their existing climate initiatives and commitments by taking a cross-sectoral

integrated approach resulting in practical, local activities.

Assignment 3: Stakeholder Analysis 2

In groups of ideally 3-6 people, please discuss and collect utilities’ motivations and interests,

using the Enlarged Empathy method.

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Citizens Engagement

Berlin’s citizens have a strong history of activism and sense of responsibility. They are used to

being consulted, advised and “having a say” in how their city is developed. This proactive

approach has been quite influential. It has blocked political decisions, influenced the use of open

spaces and informed specific climate change measures. It has also been responsible for

imposing greater transparency in utility pricing and making changes in utility ownership

structures. Citizens therefore play a key role in the transition of a city to a low carbon future as

their support for climate related infrastructure projects, policies and investments is required.

Societal acceptance and engagement was a key feature of the Berlin landscape and social

activism directly influenced the strategy and targeted activities of the M.U.D..

Initially the utilities made it a priority to directly engage with citizens to co-create locally

solutions. The partners also selected a city district to work with that had approved an

“integrated climate protection concept paper” initiated by a citizen-led neighbourhood group

involving some local community groups in defining the policy measures. This factor was very

important to the M.U.D. partners as it demonstrated local community buy-in.

While individual sponsorship of local events was a common, corporate community outreach

activity of the type offered through the M.U.D. approach provided something new and unique to

the districts. For the first time, the utilities were collaborating and, as a unit, proactively

presenting their services as a bundled package of expertise to work directly with interested

community groups.

What was not foreseeable at the beginning of the pilot were two major public referendums and

the resultant consequences.

• On the 3rd of November 2013 Berliners voted to re-nationalise the Berlin energy sector,

giving the local government the control to create a new 100% decentralized energy utility

for renewable energy and energy network. This change was triggered by citizens’ growing

concerns about fuel poverty and mistrust of the profit motivations of private energy

providers. The local district selected as a collaboration partner for M.U.D. was one of the

most vocal.

• On May the 25th 2014 Berliners overwhelmingly voted against the city’s urban

development plans for the former Tempelhof Airport. Being the largest open air

recreational area in the city they treasured its amenity value. Whilst the referendum was

a strong vote of no confidence in the government’s city planning initiatives, it did open up

an opportunity to develop a more proactive approach to citizen engagement.

Besides this more general attitude towards civic activism, Berlin had many climate change

initiatives with different missions, target audiences and partners resulting in quite a complex

policy landscape.

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M.U.D. Organizational, Structure and Resourcing

M.U.D. put in place a series of good governance measures including a project management team,

a core team, a range of appropriate project partners and ad hoc individuals with specialist skills to

support their work.

An independent project management team was appointed to facilitate team meetings monthly or

bi-monthly. They helped facilitate a visioning process and determine the scope, budget and

services required for the project. They contacted interested parties, suggested stimulating

engagement techniques and new approaches to innovation within the utilities. The management

team assumed an administrative role too: drafting presentations, contractual agreements and

funding proposals and reporting. They also identified and invited start-ups to pitch their

business ideas to the team. Project ideas were evaluated and prioritized against key criteria: the

strategic importance for the business, the climate change impact, and potential level of

innovation.

The core team included representatives from the infrastructure providers ensuring a cross-

sectoral and integrated approach, and again were facilitated by a neutral third party with relevant

expertise.

Project partners included the technical university, local city authority, a local climate change

citizens group and local schools and district business networks. They each played different roles.

For example, the project manager invited university students of architecture, engineering and

product design to develop solutions to challenge-led problems defined by the M.U.D. team. The

partnership was supported by a number of ad hoc individuals including start-ups, other

companies and students.

The core team was composed of two representatives from each utility, a lead and deputy. The

representatives were assigned by the CEO and selected from a relevant department that could

cover climate change issues. The assigned person needed to be sufficiently senior and influential

and have decision making authority, with direct access to their executive leadership/CEO.

However, all M.U.D. work was undertaken on top of the participants’ existing workloads.

Because climate change innovation was dealt with differently within each partner, the roles and

skills of each M.U.D. representative differed:

• BWB was represented by their R&D director (R&D department)

• BSR was represented by the innovation manager (corporate strategy department)

• BVG was represented by a special projects manager (business development department)

• GASAG was represented by new technologies manager (new technologies department)

• Vattenfall was represented by City Partnerships Manager (distribution and sales

department)

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All project objectives and activities were defined through a participatory and consensual

decision-making process. The minutes of all meetings, were clearly documented and circulated

even where there were divergent perspectives, suggestions and decisions. While there were no

written or legal contracts, all partners (except for one) remained committed to the pilot until the

end, attended meetings regularly and provided effective and efficient inputs in a responsible

manner.

The core team of five lead representatives developed an initial strategic vision, helped select the

partner district and recommended a portfolio of linked project ideas. Out of this visioning

exercise, six working groups were established to develop ideas using co-creation techniques.

Each M.U.D. member took on the leadership for one of the six working groups and was

responsible for developing an action plan and budget within three months. Based on the action

plan, the team would then be able to apply for project funding both from within their own

organizations, as well as from public funding sources.

Initially however, the M.U.D. financing model relied on 100% project financing by the neutral

third-party project management entity, Climate-KIC. The intention was that once the co-created

project plan was defined, the M.U.D. partners would contribute match and in-kind funding. The

initial budget included provision for project management and to implement innovative

collaboration methodologies such as design thinking, graphic recording, challenge-led project

ideation, workshop facilitation and the development of a street game for local community

engagement.

An important feature of the financing model was that the budget categories were flexible enough

to respond to project requirements throughout its lifecycle. The pilot was able to launch within a

few weeks as the partners initially needed only to commit to providing in-kind contributions.

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Development and Barriers

Over a period of one year, the team brainstormed various project ideas and vetted these against

the local neighbourhood needs. It became increasingly clear that the original vision to create a

large ‘flagship’ project would be hard to realize within the remaining year of pilot funding. The

team had underestimated the complexities and time it would take. There were three principal

barriers relating to contract agreements, resourcing and citizen engagement.

Contractual Agreement

As mentioned earlier, the M.U.D. partners engaged in pilot without having signed any contractual

agreements such as an MOU or a letter of intent (LOI). The verbal commitment of the various

CEOs was deemed sufficient to get started. Initially this allowed the space and flexibility to

define the group’s priorities. Once a demonstration neighbourhood was selected, and the type of

collaboration was narrowed (1.5 years into the pilot), an MOU was drafted and circulated to all

partners for legal review and eventual CEO-sign off.

However, it proved increasingly difficult to get a legal contract signed. For two utilities (one

public and one private), the MOU passed legal review very quickly and without any changes. With

another, it got stuck in the legal department because they had other priorities including an

impending law suit. The fourth utility never pushed it internally because they felt the selected

project neighbourhood was not as relevant for them as for the other partners. The final utility, a

private one and subsidiary of the other private utility, had a very conservative interpretation

regarding potential collusion implications in the contract. The numerous edits to the original

MOU draft suggested it would be very difficult to get a signed agreement and that at minimum it

could take at least one to two more rounds of legal review by all partners.

To circumvent this challenge, there were two other alternatives considered by the project

management team: (1) to secure bilateral agreements of collaboration between utility and

neutral third-party pilot facilitator, or (2) to circulate a less formal contractual agreement such as

an LOI for all partners to sign. In the end the city district authority issued a formal document

supporting the project in the form of an official letter of support. The M.U.D. team had a formal,

but not legally binding recognition, and used the letter to demonstrate support from the city and

a validation of their activities within their own organizations. The letter also helped when

soliciting administrative support and approvals from other city departments needed in the roll-

out of the street game product (discussed later).

Time and Resource Constraints

Without a signed MOU or LOI with a detailed project scope and corresponding dedicated financial

resources, the utility representatives were constrained in the resources they could mobilise. This

acted as a major impediment to achieving their objectives. As a consequence, only two working

groups, the schools and the communications group, made any tangible progress and that was

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primarily as a result of third party project management. Consequently, the working group

objectives had to be modified.

A funding delay also meant the local district climate change manager was recruited over a year

later than anticipated. It was their role organize all local stakeholders and coordinate the climate

change programs. Resourced at 50% of their time, they also worked for local city district

authorities, receiving funding from the delayed federal grant program. In the case of the M.U.D.

project, this person was a key partner to coordinate local support, and joined the project after the

local co-creation process had commenced. The district could not finance the post on its own.

As well as the utility partners’ time constraints and the district management delays, the project

was further affected by project management resources for the pilot which covered only 50% of a

full time equivalent post. This shortfall was evident and project management resources were

increased in year two, but the late start impacted on future fund-raising efforts to enable the

M.U.D. pilot to continue beyond the two-year Climate-KIC funding. The options considered at the

time included additional funding from a national or city grant program, contributions from utility

partners towards a joint pool for continued facilitation or a secondment model where the

partners committed to continue to engage rotating the chair each year. The project manager

decided that the best way to proceed was to apply for funds to continue to build an integrated

utility innovation platform.

Local Awareness

A grassroots-led initiative in the Klausenerplatz district brought 30 different community

stakeholders together over a two-year period to discuss and identify the preferred climate

change policy measures for their district. The team’s initial assumption was that the local

citizens would be highly attuned to climate change impacts and would have a clear picture of

what projects would like to implement which could contribute toward the overarching Berlin

climate change policy goals. However, when the M.U.D utility representatives went into the

neighbourhood they found very low levels of awareness of local integrated climate change policy

measures. The community group felt threatened by the implementation of any such measures

and even thought it might affect their future bills. It became clear that before any pilot projects

could be implemented there was a requirement to build community support and raise awareness.

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Assignment 4: Stakeholder Universe and Resourcing


a) please draft a Stakeholder Universe,

i. using the information in the text read and the tasks completed so far to,

particularly re-visiting your analysis and the backcasting exercise of the vision,

goals and objectives,

ii. identifying and clarifying stakeholders’ roles and cross-relationships,

iii. and relating stakeholders to the project.

b) please discuss the Stakeholder Universe:

i. How does the stakeholder constellation affect the project’s goals?

ii. How can all stakeholders be persuaded and really get engaged?

iii. What are the consequences of the relationship between the, which difficulties

were inevitable, and how might the PM cope with the implications and potential

difficulties of these stakeholder relations?

iv. What difficulties that were encountered in reaching the vision, goals and objectives

were due to the stakeholder relationships and their management?

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Epilogue

There were several tangible outcomes from the project. A joint application was made to the

Bloomberg Mayors Challenge Fund (2014) for the city of Berlin with M.U.D. partners and TU

Berlin to develop a board game for citizen engagement in city planning. The proposal was

selected from 11 other proposals by the City of Berlin to apply for funding (though the bid was

subsequently unsuccessful). Following up on the Bloomberg project idea a Smart City Integration

Prototype Game was tested within a workshop. It used playing cards with data on market

conditions and the costs and climate-impacts of various utility and Climate-KIC start-up

innovations. The participants then added their own cards to inform an integrated workplan

containing potential future project ideas. As a direct result of the workshop, the City of Berlin

used the methodology to inform its Smart City planning workshops conducted in 2015.

The Berlin Smart City Masterplan Strategy included a specific utility section which successfully

raised political awareness of the importance of utilities in city planning. Policy makers drafting

the first Berlin Smart City policy framework incorporated a unique section focused on innovations

and engagement within the utilities sector. Utilities participated in a series of Smart City

stakeholder forums in 2015. The M.U.D. pilot was included as a reference project in the draft

document which the Berlin Senate discussed.

Two ‘Design Thinking’ workshops were undertaken over six days. These demonstrated a

significant commitment by the partners to co-develop local neighbourhood solutions and learn

new low carbon development techniques. The methodology served as a means for the utilities

and local city authorities engage with community stakeholders. The process helped to define,

test and prototype a co-created neighbourhood level Climate Information Path providing a

conceptual framework for the street game. Three of the four utilities said they found the

methodology useful and saw the value in integrating it into their own organizations.

A K2020 Street Game was developed as a street and mobile game around climate protection

related measures in the city designed to inform local citizens about the various climate change

solutions available in an integrated way. There are five offline games dealing with different

themes of relevance to utility partners, a smart phone app offering an online “climate-agent-

game” and a website with project and partner information, as well as other relevant resources.

The website and app were available in German, English and Turkish to reach out to the large

migrant community and local tourists. The Street Game K2020 was launched in Spring 2015.

K2020 is a combination of five physical site-specific street games and a browser based narrative

game. Five permanently installed street signs display rules for standalone games about climate

related principles in the neighborhood. The signs function as stations for the mobile game that

tells a longer interactive story about climate the protection measures of Berlin’s utility providers.

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Street game format

Participants: 4 players

Duration: 3-10 min each

Playing field: 1-2 corners

Requirements: no equipment or material

required

Image source: http://tacitdimension.com/k2020/

Mobile game format

Participants: 2-4 players

Duration: ca. 1 hour

Playing field: Klausenerplatz neighborhood

Requirements: Smartphone browser and

mobile internet

Image source:

http://www.andreanicolo.com/design_k2020-berlin/

The M.U.D. project team invited students to develop solutions to address a series of challenges

within the Klausenerplatz neighbourhood. These included a project on reducing food waste, an

exercise on visualizing and communicating complex integrated climate measures to local citizens

and the development of an urban gardening and a multi-modal solutions project. There was

interest being shown by other city districts to engage with the M.U.D. platform (for instance from

Spandau, Schöneweide, and Moabit) and the M.U.D. School Working Group held various meetings

with partner schools.

The project team also helped promote several Climate-KIC start-ups: pitching ideas at the Moabit

Energy Day (September 2014) and promoting a new App to the public transport utility and waste

management sector. The Klausenerplatz neighborhood climate manager has expressed interest

promoting and bringing together a series of mobility innovations in collaboration with district

driving school.

A grant application was submitted to the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature

Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) to seek financial support for the continuation

of the M.U.D. project. Announcements for full proposal invitation were communicated in March

2015, however M.U.D.’s application was rejected.

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Lessons learned by project partners

The key lessons from the pilot were as follows:

1. The knowledge exchange amongst the partners was viewed as very valuable. This was

attributed to the small and integrated group format the M.U.D. pilot adopted. which was

quite unique locally.

2. An integrated approach involving various city infrastructure services extended beyond a

single district’s border, and was more difficult and time consuming than expected.

Without an impartial third party to coordinate, facilitate and manage the process, little

progress would have been made.

3. Citizen awareness, education and buy-in for climate change protection measures were

too low to develop credible pilot flagship/pilot projects. New communication methods and

participatory approaches were required to engage citizens. Examples included serious

gaming, design thinking, and online apps.

4. The wider Climate-KIC network including students, start-ups, and innovators helped the

utility partners to access new business and participatory models more quickly than they

might otherwise have done. They also highlighted funding opportunities.

5. Utilities were unable to share sensitive customer and market data which would have been

useful to inform some of the local activities.

6. There was no designated ‘client’ for the local district project. The participants (utilities,

local city district authorities and community groups) were all interested and willing to

collaborate but there was no one contractor or entity who led or had ultimate

responsibility for the activities.

An agreement was reached to have a permanent organizational presence for the M.U.D. project

within the Berlin Partner Smart City network and a possible follow-on strategic collaboration

between Climate-KIC and the Berlin Partner was being explored.

22


Imprint

Published by: Climate-KIC European Headquarters

21 Great Winchester Street

London EC2N 2JA

United Kingdom

Authors: Kristine Köhler, Gunnar Glänzel

Edited by: Karl Dalgleish

December 2017

Author info:

Kristine Köhler (MBA) is Director of Marketing & PR at AFS

Interkulturelle Begegnungen e.V. and was Metropolitan Utilities

Dialogue Innovation Platform Manager and Sustainable City

Systems Platform Manager at Climate-KIC Germany

Gunnar Glänzel (MBA, Dipl.-Soz.) is a freelance researcher with

an academic background in social innovation, social

entrepreneurship, and social investment. He works for Climate-

KIC’s Professional Education in several functions.

Case Study: Reconciling diverse stakeholders · Climate-KIC is the EU’s largest public private...

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