In this assignment, the city of Ostend’s Climate Mitigation Plan 2030 was developed under the project leadership of Wouter Cyx. The layout was done in close cooperation with the city’s public and private stakeholders and led to the creation of support within the stakeholder community for the climate plan, the climate objectives, the climate measures and the governance structure.
The climate plan covers all relevant policy components, ranging from the vision, possible technical measures and policies, governance and communication strategy. The plan has the stakeholders’ common wish image at 2030 (with a look-through to 2050) as a starting point but is at the same time strongly modelled (using a digital twin of the city) and techno-economically underpinned. This coupling of a common ambitious desire with real substantiated possibilities (=concrete measures) is the basis of plan and support.
Within the participation process and the drafting of a stakeholder governance model, much attention was focused on relaunching the alliance around the Ostend Climate Pioneers. This is a group of mainly companies channelled into setting up pilot projects around mitigation, adaptation and circular economy. This resulted in the adoption of the climate plan in June 2021.