European Space Agency: Cultural Change for Green Transition

Overview

This ‘Cultural Change for Green Transition’ opportunity provides funding to teams who would like to develop a service related to applications that trigger cultural change by raising awareness on climate change and providing mitigating actions. Funding will be provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) for 6-month studies called ‘Kick-Starts’, which can lead onto larger scale Demonstration Projects. Kick-Starts are funded at 75% by ESA for a maximum of €75K per contract. Proposed services must use satellite data or space-based technologies. Please see the ‘Authorisation of Funding’ section below to check whether your team is eligible for funding.

The Challenge

Climate change has emerged as our society evolved towards modernisation, with the rise of industrialisation and technological advancement. Those trends induced new behaviours, attitudes and habits such as overconsumption with negative effects on the environment. In other words, climate change is the consequence of damaging cultural change.

To counter the worst effects of climate change, many citizens are taking proactive actions that have a positive impact on the environment. These include waste reduction, choosing the train over the plane, and eating less meat. Industry are also taking positive steps to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve the water quality, etc, – all steps to mitigate climate change. But for our societies to become more sustainable, there needs to be a paradigm shift in mindset, habits and even in beliefs in all quarters. In short, we must develop a culture of care for our climate.

The World Bank and UNESCO have indicated that education is the only way to raise awareness on climate change and its emergency. Only when they are aware of the consequences of their actions, will citizens adapt their behaviours accordingly. Additionally, research demonstrated that less educated people are more vulnerable to the risks of climate change. Therefore, the global initiative of greening education partnership encourages the role of education in tackling the climate crisis. Greening the school curriculum provides students with the right tools and solutions to show resilience towards the climate change risks. It also helps them develop green skills and become qualified for green jobs. Education is not only crucial for students, but it also aims to sensitise citizens, governments, cities and communities. Hence, the greening education partnership is deployed around three further pillars:

greening curricula
greening teacher training and education systems’ capacities
greening communities

The scope of this Kick-Start theme is to evaluate the technical feasibility and commercial viability of space-based innovations that trigger cultural change by raising awareness on climate change and providing mitigating actions. The overarching goal is to contribute to the development of a sustainable society and prepare the next generation to face tomorrow’s challenges. Space-based solutions offer a unique opportunity to educate and raise awareness about the climate emergency, to share tools and knowledge, and to forecast weather catastrophes.

Topics Of Relevance

Cultural Change for Climate Awareness

Raising awareness about the effects of climate change is necessary to initiate the behavioural change required in the population to promote actions aimed at the green transition. Although the scientific community has provided numerous publications about how climate change is largely a consequence of human activities and how the need for action is urgent and increasingly compelling, many people still do not accept the scientific evidence and, as a consequence, deny the changes in our climate. Often the denial is manifested by dismissing rising global temperatures as a natural phenomenon which is not influenced by humans or their activities.

Increasing outreach to raise awareness levels among the general population is an essential means of supporting our society as it copes with climate change, and of motivating people to make the changes that are needed. It has been shown that education significantly increases coping capacity with regards to particular climatic changes, and that this improves the resilience of people to climate risks in general.
Some potential applications could be:

Services to enhance citizens’ science, supporting public engagement and collaboration in transformation and innovation, by designing experiments, providing new data, using experimental devices and sensors, and interpreting data by creating results that are interesting for many applications. The services will facilitate the participation of the wider community, allowing the demonstration of concrete examples of the effects of climate changes.
Services to exploit art and other visual techniques to enhance visibility of the effects of climate change and support related mitigating actions. Such services, based on tools that are different from traditional scientific reports, could include for instance art exhibitions or interactive installations and would be intended to reach out to a large audience. Also, for this application, satellite-based images are useful for creating compelling visualisations and interactive maps to showcase environmental changes and for promoting an understanding of global environmental issues.
As part of this family of services, the development of a Digital Twin (DT) of a specific Area of Interest can be considered. Services to support the “what-if?” scenario to visualise the implication of social behaviour in terms of the effects in climate change in a dynamic and interactive set-up are innovative tools to engage with the community. SatEO could be used to provide real world environmental data and maps. Satnav is needed to provide geo-location information from in-situ sensors

Cultural Change for Smart and Green Cities

Smart cities can bring benefits to citizens and businesses by reducing their carbon footprint and transforming traditional processes and services. Moving the green agenda forward requires adequate, timely and transparent sharing of information, as well as creating support for and avoiding resistance to policies that have strong and differentiated impacts across socio-economic groups, territories and generations. Recently, critics of smart cities development aiming at green transition have called for a more just and equitable approach, focusing on public participation and co-creation, building local government capacity and achieving tangible outcomes for everyone, regardless of their citizenship, race or socio-economic status.

Some potential applications could be:

E-information/training for public authorities and citizens: Enhancing digital skills for both public authorities and citizens through training, specifically incorporating data derived from space technologies to understand the challenges involved in introducing green and digital transformation at individual household level, as well as helping to address the massive issues of climate change, traffic, recycling, and other environmental concerns, while simultaneously improving liveability and economic performance. This could be achieved through an online digital platform or digital twin enhanced with mixed reality by combining 3-D simulation with satEO and satnav data. An example is the joint project by UN-Habitat and Ericsson, in which, by blending visualisations of the ‘future city’ with the ‘current city’, people can get up close and personal with 3D simulations of future plans.

E-consultation/decision-making: There are many ways for citizens to participate and contribute to green transition plans/policies of the local authorities for their cities. This could involve consultation and voting for policies or plans which are shared by the local government through mobile apps. Citizens can also actively share information such as the location of frequent illegal waste disposal (fly tipping), provide feedback and evaluate their government’s green policy using mobile apps or measure air quality through wearables supporting the decision-making process of the local authorities. This also provides opportunities for citizens to collect and provide data (citizens as sensors ). On the other hand, digital data and communication tools together with technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain allow for collective insights to be gathered. This involves sensors to monitor crowds, maintaining public safety and managing waste. Citizens need to be made aware and communicated with about these sensors, which could be done through online platforms, mobile apps or digital twins integrating satEO, satnav and satcom data.

Potential users include city authorities and staff, citizens, planners, cultural associations and NGOs that focus on sustainable cities

Cultural Change for Green Education

How societies succeed in mitigating and adapting to climate change depends largely on the behaviour of human beings acting both individually and collectively. Many studies have found a positive relationship between education and a wide range of pro-environmental behaviours, including consumption patterns, conservation, and lifestyle choices. Education has a critical role to play in securing a sustainable future for all by addressing the root causes and key drivers of current climate and environmental crises and by helping the transition to greener societies. Being aware of the link between anthropogenic activities and climatic change can influence the perceived self-efficacy to interfere with and mitigate climate change, and ultimately the willingness to take actions against it. Education and training systems can act as catalysts and support a shift to a more sustainable society.

There are significant gaps globally in how climate change education and sustainability are taught in classrooms. Getting every learner climate-ready requires a holistic approach that involves adapting curricula, training teachers, rethinking schools and empowering communities. Recent UNESCO findings reveal that around half of the 100 countries reviewed had no mention of climate change in their national curriculum and, while 95% of surveyed primary and secondary teachers felt that teaching climate change is important, less than 30% expressed a readiness to teach it.

Some potential applications could be:

Innovative digital resources/applications to help integrate climate education in schools along with the traditional lessons and course materials. This could be science experiments and studies as extra-curricular activities and projects led by students to improve their understanding of the impact of human activities on environment and its subsequent influence on weather patterns and natural disasters, or digital tools to empower students to translate this knowledge to actions to help their local communities reduce carbon footprint. Meteorological data from satellites and Earth observation imagery can be useful in such initiatives. GNSS data will be helpful to provide localised information for such services
Services to formulate new educational materials and training courses with emphasis on, for example,climate change and sustainability and its effect on finance and living conditions, to help young people and adults acquire the knowledge and skills needed for a greener and more sustainable economy and society. Simulation-based activities are an efficient instructional tool and innovative services that can help incorporate such activities in traditional education can foster creative thinking and student engagement that can in turn bring about new solutions for sustainable use of resources. Earth observation imagery, GNSS and meteorological data can be useful in conjunction with digital technologies such as AI/ML, AR/VR and big data analytics to design such services.
Services to provide training to teachers on climate education issues and green transition, thus upskilling and empowering them. This could be via, the use of interactive educational materials for example, tools educating teachers to gather and process data to create such interactive educational materials. As in the previous applications, satEO, GNSS and digital technologies such as AI/ML, AR/VR can be useful to implement such innovative services. Also, satellite communications can be helpful for capability building of educators and learners based in remote locations with little or no connectivity.

VALUE OF SPACE

Satellite navigation, communications and Earth observation all have important roles to play in improving cultural change:

Satellite Earth Observation (SatEO)

SatEO can provide the global environmental and climate data which are needed to create a digital replica/digital twin of a specific phenomenon, and which can be used to enhance awareness and support education in matters related to the green transition. SatEO maps can underpin services to engage citizens for example in adopting satEO data to formulate new educational materials and courses on the topics of climate change and sustainability, satellite imagery and meteorological data can be beneficial. They can also help services assisting in the integration of climate education in schools. SatEO data can be combined to create 3-D simulation on platforms with mixed-reality for public participation in urban and public space design.

Satellite Communications (Satcom)

Satcom provides connectivity for data transmission when terrestrial solution is not available. Satcom can also be helpful for capability building of educators and learners based in remote locations with little or no connectivity and in the case of e-participation of citizens.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)

GNSS can provide localised information for services that help integrating climate education in schools, but also services to create innovative educational & awareness content targeting effect of climate change, climate adaptation and sustainability.

What they are look for

Kick-Start activities explore the business opportunity and the technical viability of new applications and services that exploit one or more space assets (e.g. Satellite Communications, Satellite Navigation, Earth Observation, Human Spaceflight Technology).

This call for Kick-Start activities is dedicated to the theme ‘Cultural Change for Green Transition’, which means that the call is open to companies that intend to develop space-enabled applications and services supporting the trigger in cultural change by raising awareness on climate change and providing mitigating actions.

Funding Costs

ESA Space Solutions can provide funding to perform Kick-Start activities to any company (economic operator) residing in the following Member States: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland.

Germany, Luxembourg and Slovenia have pre-authorised the funding to this call.

Kick-Starts are funded at 75% by ESA for a maximum of €75K per contract.

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