How might we drive the renewable energy transition in cities?

On June 13th, we had the pleasure of hosting a workshop on the theme of "How might we drive the renewable transition in cities?" at our Copenhagen office. The event is the second in a series of workshops arranged by the partners in the _by Design initiative – 1508, Monstarlab, KPMG Denmark, and EGGS Design.

A diverse group generated diverse ideas

After an inspiring keynote presentation by Honeywell's Lana Sukhodolska, who presented a comprehensive overview of the state of renewable energy and the main drivers for the future, we kicked off the workshop in groups. Thanks to participants from several different sectors such as infrastructure and mobility, municipalities, architecture, and the energy sector, we could learn from a wide range of perspectives.

The groups' final suggestions ranged from digital platforms that forecast and automate household energy usage to electricity-generating shoes and self-sustaining living spaces to empower disabled citizens or local energy communities that take ownership of producing, storing, and trading their own energy.

Step 1 of the workshop identified a wide range of ideas - some moving from far-future to feasible - for future citizens of 2035. For each team, one idea was developed further in Step 2. The final solutions, which identified an opportunity where renewable technology could be applied to our personas, were presented as a value proposition statement.

"Co-creating with so many specialists from these sectors provided a unique range of perspectives."

Kate Saunders, Senior Designer and facilitator of the _by Design workshop

Future journey mapping and shared memory techniques

During the workshop, we used so-called future journey mapping and shared memory techniques. This allowed us to co-create in smaller teams before gathering the whole team and collaborating in a larger group. The participants could focus on specific personas as well as cover a variety of different sectors so that we could identify a wide range of opportunities and ideas together.

We used personas to help the participants imagine different situations and create a narrative and possible solutions for real-life problems and situations related to the renewable energy transition.

_by Design is a collective initative

The _by Design community is an initiative by the partners; 1508, Monstarlab, KPMG, and EGGS Design. Our ambition is to help leaders build better businesses and create a better future for all of us by design.

The workshop material is available under the Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) so that it can be used non-commercially, and more people can have the opportunity to imagine the future of renewable energy within cities. Would you like a copy? Please get in touch with Kate Saunders (kate@saunders@eggsdesign.com) or Katja Egmose (katja.egmose@eggsdesign.com)

Stay tuned for upcoming workshops by _by Design – join the group on LinkedIn! Together we can do great things.