Putting the fun into fungi

ISABEL: In 2013, our new mayor requested an environmental diagnosis of the city from my university. That diagnosis showed environmental damage caused mainly by our textile, cutlery, and shoe industries.

But it also showed a disconnect between our citizens and nature. There was a lack of climate literacy. The key was the mayor putting it on the political agenda, asking: how can we address these losses and improve? And how can we bring climate and environmental literacy to our citizens? He brought all the political parties on board. This political consensus was very important.

At the same time, he reorganized city government, bringing the key environmental strategy areas – mobility, waste management, noise, air quality, nature and biodiversity – together under one umbrella. This created a multi-disciplinary climate transition team, bringing some climate-integrated management to the process, with the best city technicians working together.

The mayor, with City Hall and the Universities of Minho and Trás-os-Montes, also founded The Landscape Laboratory, a non-profit organization based on research and innovation. Its researchers provide scientific evidence to support political decisions. There's also environmental education and awareness-raising events, with a dedicated team going out to schools and reaching 20,000 students with more than 900 actions per year. This increases climate and environmental literacy, empowering citizens. And there’s a mission structure linking the different components: citizens, science, private sector, city government, landscape laboratory. The climate journey is a long one, and we call it a mission structure because we are really missionaries on that road.

GAVIN: How does the city integrate smart technologies into its efforts to reduce that carbon footprint?

I: Guimaraes is one of the EU Mission Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities. We have a vision of becoming a One Planet City by 2050 (currently the world is consuming the equivalent of more than one planet). We are measuring our ecological footprint at city level but also providing citizens with an individual calculator to measure their own ecological footprint. You need to measure everything you are doing. We have a digital platform to monitor air quality and noise levels. We monitor the water from the rivers to combat flood risk, and there’s also traffic monitoring. All this platform data is made available to citizens, but also to the climate transition team to study and improve the city's climate performance.

G: You sound excited by what Guimaraes is doing to really change how it operates.

I: When we started, we felt like a small city: what difference could we make? We knew we couldn’t replicate what big cities were doing, so we took a different approach. We started with small-scale projects, most of which could be funded from municipal finances. Very close to citizens and science, where you can manage the key performance indicators and implement a participatory approach. And then you can reproduce this project as many times as you want.

G: You build it up from a small base?

I: I call it the mushrooms theory – just give them the proper nutrients and they will grow.

G: It sounds like Guimaraes now has plenty of mushrooms?

I: It’s like a pop-up. We have lots of bigger projects that have come from small-scale projects: 53% of our projects are small-scale projects. You create a sense of belonging – the citizens own the challenge.

G: So, it's not just top down. Citizens are playing their part as well?

I: Yes, and they identify themselves with the challenge: it’s not just the city’s challenge, it’s also their challenge. It was important to bring the private sector on board, too, as most of the city’s emissions were due to the transport and industry sectors. So, we launched the climate city pact, aligning their own targets with the city’s. Almost 200 companies are members and the majority are small or medium-sized. They need innovation and technical support, so we provide the means to enable them to make their own plans, measure their own carbon footprint and identify the strategic areas to invest in to achieve the city’s 2030 targets.

G: What role is smart technology playing in your scientific and coordinated approach?

I: We have sensors for transport that give us the data we need in terms of traffic, noise and air quality. It’s important to measure and have sensors across all centralities because we have a poly-centric model of city arrangement, with traffic coming from neighboring cities and other centralities. Mobility is one of our biggest challenges. Since 2016, the municipality has been replacing its fleet and now has 40% electrical vehicles. In addition, one of the requisites for the public transport contract is that they also start to be electrical. Now 46% of the travel kilometers in Guimaraes are made with electrical vehicles.

We also have charging points spread across the city. Electrical transition is welcome, but it’s also crucial to encourage people to shift from individual transport to public transport or other means of transport. Replacing all vehicles with EVs means you still have traffic congestion. It’s a mobility matrix, and we are now measuring how these kinds of transitions impact emissions.

G: Are you aligning with technology companies and research institutions to do all this?

I: We are starting to. The municipality decided to start with building capacity within the climate transition team, with innovative research centers here in Guimaraes. But the next step is to begin working with more companies that could support us and bring more technology into the city.

G: What has been the most innovative change that you've seen in the city?

I: It’s the social innovation. You need to increase climate literacy, and that means increasing digital literacy. When you start to bring everyone on board, and everyone takes ownership of climate action, then this is the biggest innovation you can have. Everything flows from that.

G: It’s both top-down change and bottom-up change: citizens embracing change alongside authorities implementing change?

I: Yes, we were able to bring these two approaches together. It’s fundamental. It required political consensus and everyone is very positive about what’s going on.

G: What difference do you think AI will make in years to come?

I: There is a challenge for AI because if we are talking about social innovation, about individuals’ perceptions and changing habits, what is the role of AI in that? Fine if they already have digital literacy, but for many individuals, I have my doubts, because there it’s more about addressing people’s feelings. You’re talking about heart and emotion.

Let me just ask you something: can you say Guimaraes for me?

G: Sure, Guimaraes.

I: And now can you say it and smile?

G: (laughing) Guimaraes.

I: It's completely different, isn’t it? And this is how we feel in the city. We smile when we say the name of the city and I don’t know how AI can bring this kind of emotion to the process. When you start a mission to change things, you need to put your heart and your soul and your emotion and your passion into the process because it's hard to make people see that it is necessary to change habits, behaviors, political decisions, and so on. But I can definitely say Guimaraes with a big smile, and with my eyes also smiling!

G: So, technology has a part to play, but unless it’s rooted in the emotions and enthusiasm of citizens, it lacks the foundations required?

I: Yes, and this is the next step for AI. Saying the name of your city, and smiling and almost crying because you are so enthusiastic about what you are doing, is a feeling that is currently impossible for AI to reproduce. It’s about commitment. And commitment as a citizen is about doing things and putting in effort, even when you are not motivated to do it.

G: You sound confident you'll get to One Planet City status by 2050?

I: Yes. And we will do it as One Planet citizens. We can also inspire other medium-sized cities to do what we’ve done. Most cities are medium-sized like ours, and remember my mushrooms theory: we do it here, it gets replicated and will spread. From local to global, Guimaraes can make a difference.