The smart city puzzle: cities, platforms and service provider

The paper provides an analysis of 19 hydrogen production methods, focusing on efficiency, cost, and environmental sustainability. It identifies the efficiency of fossil fuel reforming and the high environmental impact of non-renewable sources. Renewable methods are more sustainable but less developed. Hybrid approaches offer balanced results while further innovation is needed for truly sustainable hydrogen production.

The paper discusses the challenges cities face in transitioning to a circular economy, emphasizing the decline in global circularity and the need for public procurement to drive the change. It highlights the complexity of accessing and applying circular strategies and proposes innovation procurement with specialized AI as a solution.

The article outlines approaches and a framework for pricing in industrial symbiosis, stressing fair and sustainable mechanisms, considering costs, earnings, risks, and value beyond economics for successful circular economies.

The global energy landscape is shifting towards renewables, with wind and solar as the fastest-growing sources. Innovation in efficiency, storage, and smart grids are driving this transformation. Despite challenges like grid integration and policy development, renewable energy is pivotal for job creation, energy independence, and fighting climate change, offering diverse career opportunities.

The M-Benefits project reveals that energy efficiency investments often overlook crucial benefits like product quality, operational risk reduction, and competitiveness. This gap persists despite clear profitability, as conventional appraisal methods focus narrowly on energy savings. The project provides tools, training, and case studies to help professionals communicate and leverage a project's full value, urging a shift to encompass strategic business outcomes, beyond mere technical improvements.

DEESME project enhances EU energy management via collaboration, clear communications and focusing on multiple benefits, addressing challenges SMEs face in compliance, audit quality, and recognizing wider advantages of energy efficiency beyond savings.

The DEESME project aims to simplify energy efficiency for European SMEs by providing practical national scheme recommendations that are user-centered, highlighting benefits, and making policy guidelines clear and accessible, alongside incentivizing benchmarking and carbon footprint tracking.

The DEESME project demonstrates how SMEs across Europe benefit from integrated energy audits by achieving energy savings and unlocking multiple business advantages, such as enhanced innovation, employee satisfaction, and resilience.

The DEESME Multiple Benefits Approach transforms energy audits for SMEs into a strategic business improvement tool, emphasizing productivity, sustainability, and employee wellbeing, beyond mere compliance. This innovative method fosters holistic benefits and equips future leaders to drive the energy transition.