University of Siena

Presentation

universita-nuovologo300 The University of Siena is one of Europe’s oldest Universities (1240) with a strengthen position in teaching and research at both national and international level. Fifteen departments provide bachelor’s and master’s degree programs to almost 20.000 students, PhD programs (376 PhD students) and other postgraduate schools. The University of Siena is oriented straight to strengthen relations between academic research and industry.

Role in City-zen

On behalf of the University of Siena, a team of researchers, namely Ecodynamics Group (www.ecodynamics.unisi.it), coordinated by Prof. Simone Bastianoni of the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Physical Sciences, was engaged in City-zen. The expertise of the group is intended to be exploited on two levels: enhancing the rationale around sustainability on scientific basis, mainly referring to thermodynamics (ref. “The Road to Sustainability”. WITpress, 2008); boosting knowledge on systems’ sustainability by performing indicators among Carbon Footprint, Ecological Footprint, Emergy-Exergy, Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, Life Cycle Assessment. These, combined with GIS and ICT, can be potentially implemented for monitoring and assessing urban systems dynamics in space and time (e.g. energy flows, waste and water streams, CO2 emissions, air quality, etc.), both qualitatively and quantitatively (ref. “The Moving City”. Laris, 2011)

www.unisi.it

The Project

A city operating entirely on clean energy. In theory, it's possible. But in real life? How to integrate new solutions in existing buildings, systems and people's lives? What are the technical, economic or social barriers? And how to overcome these? That's what we've learned by doing in 20 projects in Grenoble and Amsterdam.

Our Activities

Achieved Impacts

20 innovations in Grenoble & Amsterdam
35,000 tonnes CO2 saved per year
76,000 m² renovated residential buildings
10,000 dwellings connected to a Smart Grid