The current pandemic has highlighted the importance of building resilient cities and communities. And whilst we are required to change the way we dwell and interact in our cities; we have realised how important and needed are those interactions in the community.

Since 2016, Sharing Cities - one of the EU’s largest Smart Cities Lighthouse projects funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and development programme - has tested and implemented ten smart city solutions with high market potential in the fields of energy, mobility and data-sharing platforms.

Working collaboratively with an international consortium of 35 local authorities and municipalities, PLCs, SMEs, NGOs and academic institutions, our team at Connected Places Catapult has led on the development of people-centric solutions that not only aim to raise environmental awareness but also encourage long-term behaviour change towards smart digital services.

To do this, we have developed an ‘online/offline’ mechanism which presents citizens with appealing alternative ways of making a sustainable impact in their communities and neighbourhoods, using peer to peer incentives and rewards. We called this new tool the Digital Social Market (DSM).

DSM uses online engagement to trigger real-life behaviour change. It is designed as a versatile mobile application which enables and promotes digital and physical interactions between users, services and service providers.

There are many examples of incentive-based applications available to users today. Sharing Cities’ approach is unique as it aims to form a value chain which places social and citizens’ needs first. The end result is a set of services which support a stronger connection between cities and citizens and is driven by change, not profit.  

We tested the DSM in our three Lighthouse cities of Lisbon, London and Milan. All three cities adopted a common framework but implemented the DSM in different ways to achieve different outcomes.

 

In the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the DSM was designed to incentivise residents to change their energy consumption patterns and behaviours in an effort to reduce pressure on the grid during peak-time demand. 

In Lisbon, schools used the platform to compete for city funding. This enabled them to green their school infrastructure through sustainability-focused packages of equipment or services to help improve their energy efficiency and encourage environmental awareness.

In Milan, the DSM led to the creation of SharingMi, an online community of nearly 1,700 users. The platform encourages users to share experiences and ideas to grow awareness and stimulate action around urban challenges related to the city’s policies (such as the campaign for a Plastic Free Milan), and more recently to support citizens with ‘stay at home eco-challenges’ during the long months of lockdown.

All our insights and lessons learned in the process of creating the Digital Social Market have been captured in our newly released playbook, a guide produced by the Sharing Cities programme available to all those interested in exploring and replicating this approach. 

Download the Digital Social Market playbook here.

Francesco Marchet is Project Manager and Project Management Office Team Lead at Connected Places Catapult, the new name for Future Cities Catapult and Transport Systems Catapult. Francesco has extensive experience in international R&D projects focussed on smart cities, big data, e-Health and MedTech. In parallel to the practice, he is a guest lecturer on Innovation and Project management.