Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to Smart in the City, the BABLE Podcast where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
I am your host, Tamlyn Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by BABLE Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the Babel platform@babel smartcities.eu so hello everyone.
So glad to have you listening in. Today I'm sitting in the beautiful city of Sonderburg in the south of Denmark.
I'm here for the Rethink City Summit. And so I would like to give a big thank you to the organizers that made this happen, that allowed me to come here and interview some amazing speakers and guests. Today we're exploring all different types of topics around sustainable urban development, public private collaboration, and how we can really reach Net zero.
Of course, our transport systems are at the forefront of this transition. I have a wonderful guest here today to speak more on that topic. Without further ado, I'd love to introduce to you Suniva Vossenhaugen, the climate advisor for the Trondheim Municipality in Norway. Welcome.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Thank you very much. It's great to be here in Somdaborg, like you said, and also a great opportunity to be able to speak on this podcast. Thank you.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited to learn more about, well, Trondheim also and to really understand what you're doing in the region and learn from you. So I want to start us off with a bit of a teaser question to get us warmed up, lighten the mood, you know, get going. So with that, I would like to ask you if Trondheim were a type of weather, which weather type would it be and why?
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Well, I mean, in Norway we love to speak about weather, as in everywhere, right? Yeah. Yeah, probably.
And Trondheim. I mean, a joke about Trondheim, I guess. And it's true. You can have all the seasons in one day.
Yeah. So it can be raining and sun is out and then snowing the next, next minute. And maybe that's a good description.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, all of them.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Good.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: I love it that people actually say that a lot about Colorado, where I'm from as well.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: So you can get all of it in one day. Especially in like March, you can have snow and rain and sun and everything all in one day. So I can imagine it's something similar.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: So is it. Is it the same for your climate work? Does it feel like all the. All the weather in one day?
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so, maybe. I mean, great to work with such important questions and try to push the city and the society, but it's also very tough, right?
Yeah, yeah, a lot of prioritizing, but that's also up to the politicians.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. A lot of moving parts there. Okay, so I want to learn a little bit more about you as a person.
What is your background? What did you get in? How did you get into this field? How did you end up in this role today?
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, maybe I don't have like this clear path towards working as a climate advisor.
Actually started out, I have an education from marine technology and I started out working in oil and gas offshore with drilling.
I was responsible for the drilling fluids and I did that for some years offshore and then onshore. And I had great colleagues and a great place to work. But for me, like, the climate question just.
It just became more and more important to me and it was very hard for myself to justify my work. I mean, I respect the people working there, but for me personally, I wanted to make a change.
So I did a different master's in science and technology studies, which was. Was a lot of fun because it's like before I had more strength engineering and now it's more focus on how technology is adapted into the society and so on, or like a holistic approach to the whole question. And that was something that fit me.
And then a position opened at the municipality looking into transport and emissions from transport.
And I applied and I got it. So that was great. I was very happy.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Nice. Evolution. It's actually one of my favorite parts, I think about my job is like hearing everybody's backstory.
Sometimes they come from a completely different background and then they end up in this field. And it's such an interesting story on how you get there.
So tell us a little bit more about Tweim. Paint us a picture. What does it look like?
What makes it unique? Yeah, tell us all.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Well, it's very beautiful, like so many cities in Norway.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I can imagine.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: It has like a big fjord outside and it's a university city, so we have a lot of students.
We have like, the inhabitants are just about over 200,000, I think, and we have almost 40,000 students. That puts a big mark on the city and it gives it life, I believe.
And in addition to that, like, one of the main sectors is research and development, academia, like more is invested per capita in Research and new knowledge in Trondheim than any other place in Norway. Okay, interesting. Yeah, that's really great.
We are one of the EU cities mission cities.
112 cities that are going to be climate neutral by 2030. Fingers crossed.
Yes, yes, absolutely. We're working towards it. Yes. And much more. I mean, you should come visit.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: I will, I promise, sometime. I definitely want to make it up there, so.
Sounds really fascinating and great that you're investing so much in in these sectors.
I want to talk to you now more about the transport system and what you're doing in that regard. That's also your topic today that you're going to be speaking about, right?
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: So this will be a little warm up for you to just start talking on the topic and I'm really excited to hear from more about it.
So Norway has been a global leader of course in passenger EV adoption, but commercial fleets has been a bit harder to shift.
So from your experience, what makes commercial vehicles so much more stubborn and so much more of a challenge compared to private cars?
[00:07:49] Speaker A: I think I want to start with one of the reasons are maybe that the incentives that we're working for the transition of the private electric cars are maybe not in place for the commercial vehicles.
For instance, in many cities in Norway, also Trondheim, there's a deal with the government where we have a zero growth target in mileage for cars.
And if we achieve that, what we get back is funding to infrastructure, public transport, bike lanes, et cetera, et cetera.
There's no zero growth target for commercial maybe also traffic is increasing, I mean E commerce, home deliveries, et cetera. That's part of it.
And of course more practical issues, technical issues for the transporters and service people.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Just some typical event noise around us. No worries, continue.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: For instance, electrical cars were in the beginning exempt from taxes.
That make a big difference in Norway because there are high taxes on cars.
So the difference between buying an electric car and a fossil car was like for financial reasons, where it was a great benefit for the electric car.
But the tax rules are different for commercial vans and trucks and used not private. Right.
And you have like the. The technology development started later.
So now we're starting to see a lot of good choices that will work.
But maybe we're less earlier.
For instance, the batteries are heavy for vans.
They don't like it takes from the payload and that's very important.
And you have, you didn't have. Now we have it. It took a long time before we had four wheel drive and etc. Etc. And that's important. In the northern country like Norway, with a lot of mountains and a lot of. Yeah, and yeah, a lot more also. I mean the second hand value was uncertain for a long time and maybe still, and that's important for a company, maybe a lack of willingness to pay from customers to pay for the extra investment cost that companies have to do to buy electric. I think the prices for a new electric van and the new fossil van is the same now, but for trucks it's a different story.
But of course they are cheaper to use because electricity is cheap in Norway and you have less maintenance costs and everything. But still they have to make a big investment.
I think I could talk more about.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: This, but so many challenges.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's very complex and probably also a lot of cultural barriers.
But also another technical barrier is maybe charging infrastructure is major because especially for trucks because they are big and they can't really charge at the same place like smaller cars and vans. They need a big area.
Practical reasons. And also of course traffic safety.
And a lot of the time the power grid where you want the charging infrastructure, the power grid isn't developed enough. Right there.
Yeah.
Economic reasons. Right. Investment cost more.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes a lot of sense. So your city is trying to pilot consolidation hubs as one way forward. Can you talk. Well first, maybe for people who don't know what a consolidation hub is, maybe just first outline what is that and what are the key criteria that you're using to decide kind of hub placement, scale, et cetera.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we want to pilot hubs for goods or services, but we're looking into goods first. Maybe we think that's the easiest for at least for the municipality.
And the thought is that be a third party hub and then to deliver to an area or to deliver to a special mall or whatever, they have to deliver it to this hub first and then repackage like fill up a whole car. So. So you don't have like this.
So we want to reduce the amount of cars or trucks delivering to one point. Yeah, yeah. And of course you have.
You have not issues, but you have like some transportation companies say that they already do that and then you would have exemptions. Right. But the idea is to. To reduce the amount of trucks and cars and mileage. Really?
What was your second question?
[00:13:38] Speaker B: What are the key criteria you're using to decide hub placement, scale, etc.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Well, the location is very crucial.
So we work from central.
Some central principles.
That's often called the ABC principle of localization and such hubs should be located in what we call the sea areas. And that means that it has proximity to the main road network. That's important.
So the hub must be easily accessible for large trucks coming into the city via, for instance, the main road.
The goal is for them to avoid driving in the narrow city center streets.
Proximity to demand.
So it must be close enough to the. If we're talking about the city center, that's the example here now. Must be close enough that the last mile can be done effectively with zero emission vehicles.
Either a bigger zero emission vehicle or if you want to go for smaller vans or cargo bikes and whatever is practical.
And lastly, it's the correct land use. So we look for areas that are already meant for industry or commerce to avoid conflict with residential areas and of course to preserve green areas, nature. We don't want to take extra land to make this hub. That would be counterproductive, I think.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Thanks for defining that.
I also want to briefly touch on a topic that is a headache called procurement.
It can be a headache. Of course, public sector has to use it and it is often, maybe not used as much of a power, as much of a powerful lever as it could be.
And it's more just a headache that municipalities have to go through.
So I want to ask you, how are you leveraging your purchasing power as a municipality to accelerate zero emission logistics?
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually look at it as a great tool, more than a headache really, because also I work in the climate department, not the buyer's department.
Maybe that's why I don't do it.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: No, I think it's a good way.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: To look at it.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: I think it can be a headache.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: For some, but it's good to think.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Of it as a lever.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I get where you come from.
Yes, it's very important for us to use our purchasing power. I mean, we are a big city in Norwegian terms and we have, yeah, a lot of power there.
So for instance, we have, together with other big cities in Norway who did the same thing at the same time because we cooperate.
We now have a requirement for zero emission vehicles in municipal contracts from 2025. This year in January, this was put into place for all vehicles below seven and a half tons.
And then from 2027 it will be for all vehicles. So they have to be zero emission or biogas.
That's a really good requirement, I think, that we've done.
And that pushes the market and the decision.
The political approval for this requirement was put in place in 2022 and we broadcasted it from that Time. And that's important because predictability is very important for the industry.
So we have to tell them far in advance.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good tip, I think, and a good piece of advice, I think also for municipalities who are thinking about taking similar actions.
So you told me also about kind of the six strategic focus areas that Trondheim has identified. Those are efficient city logistics, public procurement, usage incentives, grants, infrastructure and zone regulation.
Where are you seeing kind of the biggest bottleneck today and what do you think would take to unlock that?
[00:18:31] Speaker A: I think that, I mean maybe biggest bottleneck is maybe the lack of good and available data.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: So across all of them?
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely without precise data on how goods actually move in the city, when, where, how much planning and measures are often based on assumptions.
I mean we have like general mileage from vans and trucks, but like I said, we don't know how the goods is moving around.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Is that because the private companies don't want to share that data with you or what's kind of hindering that?
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's hindering it. And like it creates a chain reaction. The lack of data makes it difficult to coordinate between all the actors, both internally in the municipality and between the municipality and private transporters.
So without good coordination, it becomes difficult to create profitable business models for new green solutions.
So we need common platforms for data sharing and closer cooperation between, you know, the public and private sectors so that everyone is working from a shared fact based picture of the challenges. At least that is a dream and that's what we're thinking of really.
But I think you were hinting to it and of course it's like it's all those areas that we are. All the strategic areas that we're working on is getting them all to work and to like at the right time they need to work together. It's not like one solution.
That's why we're pinpointed those areas. Really. Yeah.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Makes sense. I think so many cities really grapple with this need for this roadmap. I guess that really pulls it all together. Do you have such like a roadmap for this area or how are you kind of strategically looking at it?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Well, maybe not a strategic.
Not like a roadmap, but at the end of July now our.
The strategy for city logistic was put out on public. A new one was put out on public hearing and it will probably. Yeah, it's. The hearing period is over in October, so maybe depending on what the feedback is, we'll have a new strategy in place maybe before Christmas or maybe. Okay, that's good. Yeah.
And the strategy, I mean the main strategic framework for this is the ASI framework. Avoid, shift, improve.
So I think this will help us point out the directions we want to go.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, that's good to hear. I think that's, that's a great step for sure. What do you feel like when we're talking about this? What do you feel like is still missing maybe from kind of the direction that you're moving in? Is there any kind of tool, is it a policy, is it funding? What's missing that would really unlock, I guess, accelerated progress for you?
[00:22:13] Speaker A: I think what's perhaps most lacking is a holistic integration of city logic logistics into all city and transport planning.
Historically, freight transport has been an afterthought, something that has been handled reactively rather than proactively.
So we need to elevate city logistics to the same strategic level as public transport and cycling. And you know, what we do to move people away from cars to other means of transportation.
And this would require a cultural change where we view logistics not just as a technical problem for the transport industry, but as a fundamental part of well functioning, sustainable and equitable city.
So for instance, to have city logistics plans in place in the city and it must be an integrated and mandatory part of mobility plans, not just an annex.
Yeah, or this is what I'm thinking. Right.
And maybe other cultural change, like deep societal changes would be benefit beneficial, like for the consumer, maybe have some more patience.
Don't buy things from temu.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Maybe the over consumption that we have and.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean, and be more patient.
Of course the male has to get through to everyone, but we don't have to do like do that for everything. Yeah, yeah. So over consumption is a big driver.
But we also have. I also have colleagues that work a lot on that.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: That's a tough one. These are like behavior change things are always the toughest, I think.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yes. It's hard enough to apply them to myself.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah, we know everything and we're still like, oh, that looks nice. I should get that when you're online shopping.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: I know, I know.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: I'm not a TEMU shopper though, at least so I stay away from that one.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: But one more point is that also real efficiency must become profitable.
It must pay off for the driver to drive fewer and fuller vehicles, even if it requires more with work with the trans. Transshipment. I mean the. What we hear all the time is that time is money, but so are materials, energy and the drivers of the vehicles.
So maybe regulations and different tools can help us with this? I don't know, we'll see.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah, kind of going into that, we touch, we touched a lot on the need for this close collaboration between you and the logistics companies.
And so I want to talk a little bit more about that first. I'll play devil's advocate because some might argue, okay, stricter zone regulations, consolidation requirements, they might, you know, risk punishing especially smaller logistics companies, raise the price on consumers.
So how do you balance this? How do you ensure that decarbonizing commercial transport doesn't come at the expense of fairness or competitiveness?
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah, this is an incredibly important point.
Fairness is central and the goal is not to create monopolies.
For example, a hub can be operated by a neutral third party. That's one way of trying to avoid the monopolies.
It needs to be open to everyone, including small local transporters.
And the operation can also be put out to tender which ensures healthy competition and like for the consumer and for the different types of companies. You could also argue that zone regulation is something we must do precisely for the sake of fair competition.
Like several players are ready to deliver on both zero emission transport and co loading but it isn't profitable for them to do so today.
So I think that it should be if we were going to, if we're going to do this, I mean we don't have the mandate to do it yet in my city but if we're going to do this, it should be regulated. I'm sorry, then I'm talking about the strict zones, hubs, we can pilot hubs and we can make cooperations with the private companies. Yeah, so we are working on that of course.
But if we're gonna do like zone regulations, it should be regulated but also announced in due time, like well in.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Advance so they can prepare.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: And yes, that's very important. And we should also decide like cooperate with the, the industry themselves when we are deciding on how this should work, where it should be.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Co create it together with them, not bring them in later on.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Right, yes, that's very important to have like a healthy and well functioning city and cooperation and not like, I mean they have so much knowledge that I don't know anything about. Right. About how they work. I haven't worked in a transportation company before. So we need their input and we are doing a lot of cooperation but we could be better.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Always, always areas for improvement.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Of course, of course.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: But it's good to also sometimes realize this and yeah, and I think one.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: More point about fairness, Fairness, the current system today, maybe it's like disproportionally burdens vulnerable groups with noise and pollution. Maybe, I mean, where they live, maybe they have a lot of noise and pollution. And if we can remove that or make it better, that's also something that makes for more fairness and social.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Balance.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah, balance. Yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
I think that's an important point as well. This focus as coming from a quality of life standpoint, also on how it can, how it can really improve quality of life.
So for the companies, there might be some companies listening, for example, who offers, you know, logistics solutions, let's say logistics companies.
What from your perspective, should they better understand about the reality of your perspective from the municipality and your municipal decision making?
And what, what could they do? What could they do to better collaborate with you?
[00:29:49] Speaker A: I think the most important thing is to understand that the, the municipality is not a regular customer.
We are an arena for balancing like countless, often conflicting interests.
A decision is not just a business decision. It's a political process that involves everything from residents and businesses to various agencies and elected officials.
This is very important.
And like, what could make solution truly attractive isn't just that it's technology advanced.
So it could be also that the company acts as a partner.
So what this could mean is that they understand the local context and how their solution contributes to the city's overall goals regarding, for example, city life, traffic safety and land efficiency, and of course, the climate goals.
And that they are willing to participate in dialogue and pilot projects and they're willing to test and adapt to the solution together with us.
And a third thing that would be great is that they show how their solution creates value for the entire city.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: And I think maybe so many companies do this, but like, this is what I wanted to bring forward.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I think so many times solution providers don't approach it as a true partnership. And I think that's a very important point. And from the perspective of a city that you're just, you're just a different beast.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: You really need to partner and the.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: City, I mean a municipality have many things that we need to prioritize and many things that the municipality have to do and have to provide.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah. You're like obligations, right.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Come.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Have to come first and.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And the societal big challenges are often or could come in conflict with each other.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: Now we get to the end part of the main interview now, and I just want to ask you if there's anything that we missed, anything that you really want the listeners to know about. Now's the time for the open floor. You don't have to take it. If you think we covered everything, we just skip on by.
If you want to say anything else to the listeners, maybe an important topic or anything that we might have skipped over too fast, do you have anything in mind?
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Yes.
I want to talk about a really cool project that some of my colleagues are doing on the municipality itself, where we have cooperation with the hub.
And the thing is, with this pilot project, we want to combine and reach two different sustainability and climate goals at the same time.
And they are to use more local food and produce and at the same time reduce mileage and transport emissions.
And those two goals are at first glance, maybe not compatible because increase.
Increasing the amount of local produce could mean that we are shopping from several small producers instead of what has been before, one big wholesaler.
And this project is very exciting, I find, because there's a lot of exciting findings from the pilot.
And the key lesson is that we're undertaking a holistic approach and working with a complete value chain. So that means that we are working a lot with improving procurement competency because there are many different buyers in all the units in Shanghai. They have a buyer usually, and there are many.
We are working with them to increase the knowledge about what you should think about when it comes to sustainability.
We are also increasing the knowledge on how to actually use the local and seasonal food that we have, recipes, et cetera.
And the practical way we are doing this is that we have a cooperation with a third party hub.
And also we are finding ways to get the food without adding transportation by, for instance, cooperating with the dairy company which is already going to the farms to pick up milk, to deliver to the schools, kindergartens, etc. Now they're also taking the food.
There's so much more actually to this project, but I can't say it all.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: In this time frame, but really interesting. It's a good example, I think, of how you can combine different goals and really think in this holistic way.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Right. We're learning so much by undergoing this project.
Cool.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Thanks for mentioning that. Really good example.
Now I'd like to bring us into our fun segment with that. I actually have a favorite, my favorite segment for you today. It's called Roll with the Punches.
Roll with the punches.
Answer this or that questions quickly and with your first instincts.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: So we just go quickly through and then at the end, if you want to explain any of your answers, you can. No pressure. It's fun, I promise. Okay, Are you ready?
[00:35:42] Speaker A: Okay.
Okay.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Summer or winter?
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Summer.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Working from office or Working from home office.
Fewer cars or smarter cars?
[00:35:57] Speaker A: I have to choose.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Yes, that is the name of the game.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: You have to choose. Okay. An incredible huge amount of viewer. Okay.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Incentives of regulation.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: Incentives.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Charging stations or hydrogen refueling or charging stations. Prioritizing logistic hubs for freight or charging stations for commuters.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: From now in Norway, I could choose the freight.
Yeah. Because we already have it in place.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Tech driven innovation or behavior driven change?
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Behavioral driven change.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Trondheim Fort or Nidaro's Cathedral.
The cathedral. Yeah, Perfect.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Not the fjord.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: The beautiful.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: You thought this fjord. I thought you said the fort.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: Oh, sorry.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Then I'll choose Trondheim Fjord. I'll choose nature.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Of course, nature. Okay, perfect. No, I think the cathedral is also a good answer.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: You know, I just didn't say fjord correctly. I love summer.
Yes, Summer in nature. Swimming and beautiful there. Yeah, exactly.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Do you want to talk about any of your answers? You hesitated on a few difficult ones.
I think on the fewer cars or smarter cars you're a bit stumped. And on incentives, regulations, anything that you want to mention there?
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Well, on the smarter cars, I think I was thrown off by smarter.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: What does smarter mean? Yeah, because I think we definitely need fewer cars and we need to really work hard on that topic. But I don't think we're gonna be. I don't know when or if ever we're not gonna have cars. Is that even possible?
So until that time, I mean the fact is that the cars need to be zero emission for us to be able to reach the climate goal.
Fewer also helps also in the whole value chain, like globally less consumption, but they definitely need to be zero emission for us to be able.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Makes sense.
Now we come to our final question. It's a question that we ask every single guest that comes on.
Because of course here at Babel we take a quite holistic approach to what smart city means and how we talk about innovation.
And I like to ask every guest to you, what is a smart city?
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I've mentioned the word holistic a lot this session, but I think that is it like we have to. A smart city would be able to integrate all the different issues, possibilities, look at it from different points of view. To be able to do good, do smart things. We can't just look at technology, we can just look at behavioral change.
We have to integrate this and maybe how to get the deep societal change.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Yeah, makes sense. Really well integrated city and holistic a city. So I like that.
So with that I have to give you a big thank you for coming on the podcast for telling us all about your work and all the interesting things happening in your city. So thank you so much.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Thank you for giving me the chance. It's been great.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation. And also, of course, thanks to all of our listeners. This also wouldn't happen without you.
And don't forget, you can create a free account on Baba, SmartCities, EU. You can find out more about different projects, initiatives, solutions, implementations, all that good stuff.
Thank you very much.
Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
