Maastricht University involved in Green Deal proposals to address the climate crisis

Maastricht leads large consortium
8 February 2021

Researchers from Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics (SBE) are involved in eight proposals for the European Commission’s Green Deal call, which was launched last year. Of these eight proposal, SBE is leading the coordination of one: the ‘2OC- Towards Climate Neutral and Socially Innovative Cities’. This 2OC consortium is built with 57 partners across Europe and has a budget of 53 million euro’s.

Greener cities

Cities consume 65% of the world’s energy and account for more than 70% of global man-made CO2 emissions. Helping cities become greener is crucial if Europe wants to achieve a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The goal of the 2OC is to develop a one-stop-shop platform to provide all necessary technical, regulatory, financial and socio-economic expertise and support for cities to implement their climate action plans. 2OC offers a unified systemic repository of climate action plans, an open-source framework for deploying Climate Data Hubs with digital enablers such as AI and Internet of Things, customizable and co-created climate city contracts.

European Green Deal

The European Green Deal Call is funded under Horizon 2020. The goal of the call is to spur Europe's recovery from the coronavirus crisis by turning green challenges into innovation opportunities. The projects funded under this call are expected to deliver results with tangible benefits in ten areas.

Eight thematic areas reflecting the European Green Deal are:

  • Increasing climate ambition
  • Clean, affordable and secure energy
  • Industry for a clean and circular economy
  • Energy and resource efficient buildings
  • Sustainable and smart mobility
  • Farm to fork
  • Biodiversity and ecosystems
  • Zero-pollution, toxic-free environments

And two horizontal areas - strengthening knowledge and empowering citizens, which offer a longer-term perspective in achieving the transformations set out in the European Green Deal.

Selected projects are expected to start in autumn 2021.

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