Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: The City, the BABA 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, Tamlin 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 Babel 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 at babel-smartcities eu.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: So, hello everyone and welcome back. I am sitting in the beautiful small city of Sonderburg in the south of Denmark and I have the pleasure of partnering with the Rethink City Summit. For this, I of course, have to give a big thank you, first off, to the organizers, everyone who's involved in bringing all these amazing people here to Sonderborg and inviting me here as well, to interview great speakers and learn a lot about the city and other cities.
So I'm interviewing some of the top speakers and I am very pleased with this episode that we get to dig in very locally and I get to learn a lot more about the city itself, what you're doing to reach your goals.
So without further ado, I would like to welcome two guests to this episode to talk about Project Zero for Sonderbag.
So with that, I love to introduce you to the managing director of Project Zero, Alan Pilgaard Jensen. Welcome, Allan.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: Thank you very much.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you so much for coming.
And with him today to speak about their partnership and what they're doing in this decarbonization journey is Drew Turner. He's the director of Global Decarbonization Solutions for Danfoss. Welcome, Drew.
[00:02:05] Speaker C: Thank you very much.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: I'm really happy to be here. I've actually just coincidentally, I went through Sonder book this summer because for vacation, essentially, and I really loved it. So when I heard that there was an event here, I was like, yes, that would be. That would be a great occasion to come back.
I want to learn more about your city. But first we like to get a bit warmed up with a teaser question.
The teaser question I have for you today is if Project Zero were a band or an orchestra, which instrument would you play?
Whoever wants to go first?
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Well, I could start.
I would say Project Zero is very much about motivating, facilitating, and so on, and also leading the planning. So it's a big word to say conductor, but I would say to some extent, we are the conductor of the transition.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Very good. Very good answer. Are either of you musical, by the way? I just might have picked this question better if you're like, oh, I actually played in a band.
[00:03:23] Speaker D: Much more of a fan than a musician.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: Okay, that works.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: That works.
[00:03:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: What about you, Drew? What's your answer?
[00:03:29] Speaker D: That's a. I knew you were going to take conductor, so I'll. I'll. I'll say trumpet solo because, yeah, a lot of what we do is contributing.
[00:03:39] Speaker C: To, I guess, what the.
[00:03:40] Speaker D: What the band does and then. But also doing kind of doing kind of solo efforts so that we contribute to the larger team efforts, but as a part of a separate effort or separate work.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. So now probably everyone's like, okay, what is Project Zero?
But I'm going to keep them in suspense just a little bit longer. I want to learn more about you both as people.
Alan, what's your background? What did you do before this? What led you into your role today?
[00:04:12] Speaker C: Well, my background is in product management. I've been in the area here all my career, and I've been working with product management, business development in industrial companies in the area. Also Danvers, where Drew is from.
And then five years ago, I joined Product Zero.
And that way I would say I've been, you know, working with a lot of the stakeholders. And that is, you know, it's a key part of, you know, Product Zero is working with a lot of stakeholders.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: And.
[00:04:49] Speaker C: And therefore I knew many people already, which was, of course, a good thing.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, network means a lot. Who, you know. Right, Good. True. Same question to you. What's your background? How did you get here today?
[00:05:05] Speaker D: So I started out 17 years with a global H vac company in the US and then I first came to Danfoss to the Turbocorp compressor division 11 years ago and started out as a director of business development, market research, and directing the business development. We figured out the best way to develop the business was to not focus on the components, but focus on the systems. And so we took that concept and just kind of built on that to start basically leveraging the broad portfolio of solutions that Danfoss has in our portfolio to work on our own system designs and work with others on those system designs.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Cool. Also interesting background. So let's paint the picture for everyone. I have a wonderful picture in my head of this panoramic view from basically where we're sitting, this hotel where the summit has been taking place of Sonderborg. But I also want us to paint a picture for the listeners.
Alan, can you please paint Us, that picture of Sonderborg, where are we? What does it look like?
Yeah, tell the listeners.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Yeah, but Sonderborg is a municipality of 75, 74,000 people and around 30,000 are located here in the center of Sonderborg, the city of Sandoval. And then we have a lot of small villages between, I would say down to 500, up to 5,5000 inhabitants.
So we have both, you could say a city center and then also rural areas.
We are located, I think you mentioned it already.
Yeah, close to the German border. Only 30 kilometers to the German border. And we have, as you also mentioned, a nice waterfront. We have a lot of, you know, you know, it's. We have an island and also part of, you know, the mainland.
The municipality is 500 square kilometers. So it's a small area, but dynamic, we believe.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yes, yeah, Small, small bite. Mighty as well.
Now tell us about Project Zero.
What is it? What are the ambitions of the partnership?
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Yeah, Project Zero is.
Yes, it's a public private partnership that was established back in 2007 and the target was set back then to get to a co neutral energy system by 2029.
So a real bold, you could say, ambition set back then. And the background actually for doing that also was that the, you could say the area needed some new development in order to attract people, in order to attract businesses.
And it was, it was then, you know, this Green Transition was really something that was believed in already back then because it's, you know, the right thing to do and also because it could also develop the, the area.
And, and I think, you know, back then it was not that easy, you know, 2007 and green transition, but you had to start up, you know, small, gather people and then have some very specific projects that you implemented and also showcased for others so that you start spreading the idea.
And you know, it's many years of development, of course, but this is really what is important here in this project is that you have a lot of stakeholders and when you work together across public and private, you can really make some difference. And, and we are trying to organize it in a way so that, that we can help driving the changes and facilitating the different, you could say, projects that are needed in order to decarbonize in a, in a, in an efficient way. Because that's really point or an important point for us is to, to do it in a, in a way that, that minimizes the cost.
So reducing energy consumption is really key for us.
So that's, I think the, the short version.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: I love these type of initiatives. So, yeah, really interesting.
Drew, I'm very curious.
I actually got to visit your headquarters yesterday too. We got to go in that beautiful auditorium with the water and all that good stuff and visit some of the. The goodies around the headquarters at dunfast.
What's your role in all of this?
What hurdles also are you facing and trying to overcome within this?
[00:10:48] Speaker D: So there's Danfoss and then there's our role. Danfoss role. The broader role of Danfoss is in enabling a lot of what Project Zero is driving.
Helping enable whatever Project Zero is driving. And we do that based on our community engagement, but also the solutions that we can provide from a technology standpoint, my team or our team with the decarbonization solutions, we're basically coming in to work with Alan and the rest of the organizations that we work with, including the end customers. Basically we're linking together energy systems and we do that. We have multiple stakeholders. And so we're coming into, along with Alan and Project Zero, drive that engagement, make sure that everybody's on the same page and continues to be. And then to do the technical analysis and financial analysis and ongoing project work to make sure that everything happens. The biggest struggles have to do with exactly that. Because as a technical person coming into these projects, you want everything to be, you know, 80% technical, 20% political. But what you figure out quickly is even where you have Project Zero driving the political will and the engaged stakeholder engagement, you still, it's. It's still basically the reverse. You know, it's still 80%.
What you're trying to do is get all the stakeholders to manage their other priorities and continue to prioritize whatever we're trying to drive that specific project, and that is balancing the their priorities, balancing the this project with their priorities to make sure that it continues.
And that is the biggest struggle is just making sure that everybody stays on the same page and is driving towards the same goal.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: And what is then process. Why?
What is your business case for being part of this?
For companies like yours and maybe others similar in other cities, why should they want to be part of this?
[00:12:48] Speaker D: It's a really good question. The biggest thing that we're trying to drive with the projects that we're working on with Alan and the rest of the stakeholders in this is setting examples for what others can do.
So when we work on a project here to integrate an energy system for a hospital to the district energy system or recover heat from a brick plant to go to a district energy system or to cool a data center out at our headquarters and recover that heat to the campus energy system.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: I saw it yesterday.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: All of those projects are intended to first establish what we call Lighthouse project.
Showing an example of how you do it, how you take what is other at first glance, a very complicated system, bite it off into chunks, simplify it, and then create a simple package of information and data for others to do the exact same thing.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: And that is actually, I would say, the essence of Project Zero. You know, we are very aware that, you know, the zero for Soderborg is, you know, has a minor impact. But when we do this and show also others how we do it, we can make an impact globally. Globally.
And that's what really drives this cooperation, as you mentioned, Drew, that it makes sense for both parties.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense to me too.
You mentioned this as probably one of the biggest challenges. So I want to kind of hone in on this a bit more. What mechanisms or structures have you both found essential to make sure both sides remain committed over such a long term transition? Whether what. What works and what doesn't?
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say first of all having this bold ambition already back then for a whole, you know, municipality with all the stakeholders for. When you have this for so many years, it, it's. It means something, right? So, so it means that you, you have a, a joint target.
But that being said, of course, that's not enough.
So we, we talk a lot about what's in it for me. What's in it for you? We need all the time to cope with, you know, the conditions, frameworks that politically and, and all other things, so to speak, in order to, to make sure that this is relevant for all stakeholders, you know, from the single individual citizen to companies and utilities and so on. So you have many different kinds of stakeholders. Therefore, it's also extremely important that this project is what we call a lighthouse project. It's a strategic project for the municipality and that this is supported politically all the way.
This is important to get everybody involved. But my main point is, you know, make sure that what you do is relevant all the time, you know, and you have to, you know, change the way you do things continuously.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Do you also have a thought there, Drew?
[00:16:08] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. What we. It's. It's kind of along the same lines. What is relevant all the time is what makes sense. And so focus on the things that make sense from a financial standpoint as well as decarbonization standpoint. Standpoint. That first factor being the number one is that don't work on the projects that don't have a financial return on them, at least as a first priority project.
Everything that we work on is the ultimate goal is, you know, Project Zero is decarbonization. But everything that we do also makes sense from a financial standpoint. It has a good payback, a good return, which is very hard to do with capital intensive, you know, infrastructure projects, which is in general what we're working on. And so making sure that we're working on only those capital intensive infrastructure projects that have a quick financial return becomes a critical factor for driving that focus.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, makes, makes a lot of sense. I was talking with a lot of the other mission cities. Sonder Book is also one of the 112 who have committed to being climate nature by 2030.
And I was talking to a lot of them in Vilnius a few months ago. And one of their major, major struggles of all the cities of course is getting the private sector on board to really be able, and having the governance structure in place to be able to get them on board. Right. Is this the answer? Is Project Zero the answer to that?
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe not the only whole answer, but, but I think that is exactly what, what we are have done. You could say this governance is about, you know, having basically we, we have an overall master plan for, for the transition, of course, and we have then split it into sectors and, and we also call them hotspots because each of these, you know, hotspots, they have an emission today and we need to lower that.
And therefore we have a specific plan for each of these hotspots that all together come to this overall reduction plan towards zero.
And we engage the stakeholders in these hotspots. So we actually have an owner of this, these hotspots here and also a project manager driving this. And then you have other stakeholders engaged in, in that, in that group and that way you have involvement from, from the stakeholders.
And, and that I think that's a good way of, you know, of getting into a good cooperation between the stakeholders. And then of course our job is to, to make sure that this is, you know, facilitated and mode and we motivate the different stakeholders also making sure that the different hotspots actually also are working together and not just in silos. So, so when you have a, an overall, you could say planning and you have, we have a stake in, in every part, then you can also try to connecting some dots between the different, you could say areas and stakeholders. And that's very much our job to make sure that this is done so that people come together and find solution and Also that we can then make this transition as efficient as possible. Because sometimes, you know, if, if you don't have this function or partnership here, then then very often I believe that, that projects will fade away. You know, they start, something is started up and they say, oh yeah, this is a very good idea. And then two months later we need to look into this again. And then, you know, time flies. So you need to have very specific action plans for each of these areas in order to be able to, to reach your target. It's as I typically say, it's like any business plan, if you, you can have a target, but if you don't have a plan to meet that target, you won't have it.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. This is kind of was going to be one of my next question questions really, on how to move from strategy to implementation. I guess that's the goal. Not just have a strategy together, but have an action plan, a roadmap on how you're going to meet those targets.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Right, exactly.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Do you have any other tips, either one of you, for getting from strategy to implementation?
[00:21:14] Speaker D: Yeah, Abs, A critical factor that we found is that very early in whatever the project is, you want to develop a concept view of what it is, is, which is kind of the master plan within the project, if you will.
You want to have a vision that everybody buys into as far as where you want to go with the project.
And so that is developing a concept design and then engaging all the stakeholders based on that concept design.
And you know, ultimately Project Zero is the establishing the political willing engagement of the community to enable it. But then the project becomes its own animal as well within that. And it's based on the stakeholders that you, you have to have engaged based on the technical design and the system execution, if you will. And those, those set of stakeholders evolve over time. But it all starts with that concept design that everybody buys into.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: I like the concept design piece a lot.
So, so when we're talking about replicating maybe projects here to other cities, do you think it's replicable for like bigger cities, for example, that are more complex, that have many different partners?
They're just big. Right. They have a lot of people to involve a lot of stakeholders. Do you think that this initiative also works for those?
[00:22:36] Speaker C: It's a very good question because it's, you know, you can definitely use part of what we do. Of course, course.
But, but I agree with you that the bigger the entity, the more complex it becomes and also the, the more difficult it is to actually have a spot on everything and having you know, facilitating motoring and so on with huge organizations.
So, so you could say what makes a difference, I believe in, in a partnership like at this size is that that people to a large extent know each other.
That, that makes, it's all about people, you know, so if you know people and you can bring them together and then you know it, it's, it's all also about like an. In business, it's about trust. So.
So we have discussed this whether in a big city, whether you need to actually make it in, in smaller units in order to actually cope with this.
But yeah, it's, it's a hard question.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You have any thoughts?
[00:23:56] Speaker D: So the presentation earlier today talked about the EU cities. Right. The. Whatever it is, the Mission Cities. The Mission Cities. That's right. And the Mission Cities are basically establishing the same thing that Project Zero or trying to establish the same thing that Project Zero is driving. Right. Which is that political will that it all starts with. In the absence of that, is it possible to do the exact. In the presence of that. Absolutely. It's possible to do the same thing to basically create a Project Zero within all of those Mission Cities. In the absence of that, in the absence of that political will, is it possible? Absolutely.
But it's more grassroots is what I would call it, because that is why we do these as individual lighthouse projects within Project Zero.
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:40] Speaker D: Because you can still do within those communities those individual lighthouse projects, for example, the data center.
[00:24:46] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:46] Speaker D: For example the hospital. But it has to be grassroots level at those facilities and then working with the community on them. Instead of starting out higher level with Project Zero and then working your way right now.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Yeah, a different bottom up approach. Yeah, exactly.
From your kind of combined perspectives, municipal initiative, global industry, what do you think?
From the perspective of companies, what do you think that they get wrong when approaching cities with energy transition solutions? We, we know that a fair number of our listeners, of course, are working for innovative companies that are trying to work with cities.
So what do you think that they get wrong?
And also conversely, what makes for a really truly valuable long term relationship?
[00:25:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I think Drew has actually also already talked about it.
I think many companies approach a project concept technically and of course that is also, you know, obvious thing to do often. But when it's really down to the, you could say solving problems, then. Then it's about people. So, so therefore I agree with your point earlier, Drew, that 80% is actually making a good concept, a good organization around things and getting people together. And, and because the technology is, you know, to A large extent available. Many of, many of what we have, just things we have talked about today here is, is ready. So, so, so it's, it's all about having the people coming together and also good business models because it's, you need to make sure that, that the two, you could say partners, they know each other and also lean forward and say, okay, we have to adapt a little here in order to get this to work, be flexible.
So yeah, I think that's, that's my main point on, on that.
[00:27:11] Speaker D: The number one mistake that I think people make is talking about product and component solutions as the silver bullet. Right. They approach these communities and they talk about CO2 capture is your ultimate silver bullet, or heat pumps are your ultimate silver bullet, or you know, that various component and product solutions are what you, what is ultimately going to get you to net zero. It's not, it's based on a broader vision, a master plan. We have a meeting in a couple of weeks on a master plan, right.
That is a living document that is based on system solutions and system concepts that we design around opportunities that are identified by the team as a part of this ongoing roadmap of how we get to net zero.
And the number one mistake as opposed to that is these individual solution providers going to these cities, companies, whoever, and talking about component and product solutions.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I see that a lot also with the different facilitations that we, that we try to build between public and private sector. So definitely see that issue happening a lot.
Now we get to come to. I just want to ask you, what do you think is the main challenge that Thunderbolt is still facing and is there some kind of tool or process or anything that is the missing. Maybe it might be the silver bullet.
To make it all work. So some might say funding and some might say, you know, better procurement.
[00:28:53] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: But yeah, I would say that we have, of course we need to, to work heavily on all tracks that we have talked about.
But for, for the most part it is, you know, the technology is there and so on. But, but I believe the last part, the last part of the, you know, journey, so to speak, last 10% actually, carbon capture is necessary and the, the, you could say the challenge there is that it is not economically viable.
So you need support, you need support for that, public support, funding for that, because the business case is simply not, you know, viable. So, so we, we first of all, we focus on the, the business cases that are really, you know, strong because that's what make people make transition and and we have exactly in the net zero cities program the mission, we, we have also looked into the investments needed in different phases. And you could say in the first part, the first from 2007 until 2020, it's only a third of the total investments towards 29. Whereas the last part, the difficult part is 2/3 of the investment. So, so really heavy.
You know, the last part of it also we, we figured out that in the first phase, as I mentioned here, a third of the reductions made came from energy efficiency. So, so and that's really where you have the good payback times.
But you know, in order to reach the, the zero you need to have the, the captures, the carbon capture as I mentioned. So, so asking about the main challenge, that would be the one because it's not economically, you could say viable today.
[00:31:09] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. As Alan says, you know, the, the Danfoss mantra around this is reduce, reuse, resource. If you've heard us say that or if you heard that yesterday. Right.
Ultimately what you want to do, and I talked about it in terms of the business case earlier, going back to that your best business case is always going to be around energy efficiency projects. Those are always going to be the lowest cost and highest return projects is reducing energy usage on the, the source side and the demand side and changing operating temperature profiles and turning things off when you don't need them on those are always going to be your quickest return projects. And then that's the reduce. The reuse is around the heat recovery from for example the wastewater system to utilize for district energy or the hospital system or the data center. Those are more capital intensive infrastructure projects as I talked about. Then you have a prioritization of those as well that's driven by the business case. And then you execute those based on what makes the most sense to do.
And then finally is the resource. Right, but resource we talk about it in terms of green energy. But CO2 capture fits into that same category. It's basically what you can achieve with everything else ahead of it you address by resourcing green energy or doing CO2 capture to achieve that final step.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: Yeah, makes a lot of sense I think.
Yeah, that's really good lessons and really good insight for a lot of our listeners as well.
Now I'd like to give you the chance. There's a bit of an open floor right now. That's because we touched on a lot of things. We talked about some good things, lots of good learnings from there. But maybe I didn't ask you a question that you really want to talk to the listeners about is there anything I missed or anything that you really want to address and make sure the listeners know?
[00:33:04] Speaker C: Well, I could maybe. We had been talking about it to some extent already, but I think that the important thing here is that we of course, like these last two days here, we come together and discuss solutions and also that we show the good solutions, the good business case, as we mentioned, so that we can provide these also in the rest of the world. Because that is all what matters, Right. Because only few demonstration projects don't make any difference. We need to have real projects that have a good return and that then can make a difference everywhere. I think that's really key. And my point is that what we're doing in the Project Zero cooperation here is exactly the same as the philosophy in the mission EU mission. It is to show how you do it so that you can also do it for the rest of Europe and the world for that sake.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:20] Speaker C: So I think that's really a key message.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Show the replicable and scalable and ones with return those solutions.
[00:34:30] Speaker C: Because then it will happen. Right?
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Anything to mention for you. You don't have to take the time.
We can skip by it, if you like.
[00:34:40] Speaker D: I mean, just to kind of say the same. Well, same topic, but under a different.
Under a different response. Your, Your next question that you had in the list, it touches on the same thing, right? Is there the political will or is this, is this specific? Is what is happening in Sonderbore specific to Sonderborg and not replicable other places? Right, and it absolutely is replicable other places, both in terms of Project Zero as well as the lighthouse projects that we do underneath that umbrella.
Right.
And it's just. It is the political will to drive it from the city level, but it's also just the financial return associated with the projects, independent of what they achieve in terms of decarbonization potential that drives the implementation and success of them.
And so that's. Both of those things are replicable independent of sondable.
[00:35:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:42] Speaker D: It's. It's everywhere that this is possible, but it takes the engagement and it takes the.
It takes the system solution view of the stakeholders involved. And it takes the. It doesn't necessarily take the political will of the community.
That helps, it helps a lot.
That helps with Project Zero. What Project Zero is driving wouldn't.
Wouldn't be possible, you know, chicken or the egg. But Project Zero itself wouldn't be possible without the political will of the son of a community.
And then what's happening here in terms of Net Zero would not happen without the political will that drove or Project Zero continues to drive within the community.
[00:36:27] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: But that's not necessary to drive it from the grassroots level as, as I was speaking to earlier.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Thanks so much for, for hitting those points home.
Now we get to go into our segment.
Our segment today is called Flip the Script.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Flip the Script.
You are the one asking the questions, and I'll be the one answering them.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: Usually that's when you're the one asking the questions and I have to answer questions. But it's lovely when I have two guests because I get to basically sit back, enjoy my coffee, and let you guys ask each other a question.
So I'd like to ask you. Drew, do you have a question that you'd like to ask Alan?
[00:37:14] Speaker D: Alan, what would you like to see Danfoss doing that we're not doing so far in terms of our engagement with Project Zero?
[00:37:23] Speaker C: Well, That's a, That's a hard question.
I, I believe that the, the, the cooperation is. Is, is very strong.
So, so I, I don't have a good answer to that, so to speak.
I think we, that we have talked about it all, you know, during this conversation that, that, you know, we have the same, you could say targets in the way that we like to, to show the world how you can do it.
And, and thereby we have a common interest.
So I think that works very well. I can come up with something right now.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: It's a very good cooperation there.
So that's good.
[00:38:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And what is also great is there's strong cooperations with a lot of other companies in Sonderpolk on, on this. So, so it's, it's really a strong local collaboration.
That's. That's for sure.
But maybe I could ask you then.
What you see as the, as the biggest barrier when working with a public partner in general.
Now, you know, we are something, you could say a little bit in between, but when you look working with the public partners in general.
[00:39:15] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a, That's a better way to phrase that question. I like that.
Yeah. Public.
Public partners tend to be the priority six months from now tend to be different than they are today.
And that is.
That is probably the number one factor because none of the projects that we do as, you know, well, are, you know, very few of them. These large capex investment infrastructure projects are less than two years.
And so maintaining that priority, we know we're gonna see that continued prioritization, consistency in Sonapur. We don't see that Same thing in most other places. And so working with public partnerships, that's the number one factor, is that changing priorities, changing administrations, changing.
Uh, yeah, changing priorities is the number one problem.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. Um, I also experienced that, so.
Wonderful. Now we come to the very final question, and it's the question that we ask every single guest that comes on here. Um, as you can imagine, I get really interesting different answers. Um, the question for you is to you. What is a smart circle city?
[00:40:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: Hello. Yeah.
[00:40:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say Smart city is actually a city that.
That is capable of bringing people together.
When you talk about smart cities, you. You often have technology. Smart technology in your head, I would say, typically, but we touched upon it earlier, that it's very much also about having the right business models, the right models for cooperating. I think that's. I think that is really unique because we have the technologies, and there are a lot of possibilities with new technologies, for sure, but in order to be able to utilize them in a smart way, you need to have this strong collaboration. Yeah.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: What do you think, Jer?
[00:41:31] Speaker D: Kind of along the same lines.
[00:41:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:33] Speaker D: Because. Yeah. The same thing I think all of us have in our heads is, right. Smart devices. A smart city is a conglomeration of a million smart devices.
[00:41:42] Speaker C: Or pick a number. Right.
[00:41:45] Speaker D: But it's also the community engagement. Same thing.
[00:41:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:41:48] Speaker D: Engaged people are data knowledgeable people.
Right. And that's what a smart device is. It's just knowing all the data associated with and knowing all the information.
Denmark's very good at this. You know, coming from the U.S. one of the first things I recognize is everybody's very engaged.
Like, if there's a political issue that comes up, almost everybody knows about it and knows both sides of it or multiple sides of it. And that.
That society factor has really enabled what Project Zero is doing and what we're doing. From a project standpoint here, that is not the same thing everywhere.
[00:42:28] Speaker C: Not.
[00:42:28] Speaker D: Not just in the US Where I came from. Right. But Smart City is an engaged city, first of all, is engaged community, engaged residents.
And that's very much tied in my mind to a smart device.
[00:42:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:42] Speaker D: Or a group of smart devices communicating together.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Same thing.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Very good. Well, with that, I just have to give you both a big thank you for spending this last 45 minutes or so with me, teaching me. I got to learn a lot from both of you, so thank you so much for. For the time.
I really appreciate it, and I'm sure the listeners do as well, so thank you.
[00:43:04] Speaker C: Thank you very much. Thank you.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: And of course I have to thank our listeners. It wouldn't happen without you as well.
Don't forget, you can always create a free account on Baba SmartCities EU. You can find out more about Smart City project solutions and more. Thank you very much.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life.
