Episode with Mayor and Smart City Coordinator of the City of Žďár nad Sázavou (Czech Republic)

City Stories by Energy Cities

For this episode, our podcast host Miriam Eisermann sat down with Martin Mrkos, Mayor the City of Žďár nad Sázavou in Czech Republic. He is joined by Michal Bacovsky, who is Smart City Coordinator of Zdar. The city counts 21.000 inhabitants and is one of the 10 pilot cities involved in the EUCityCalc project. After intensive thermal insulation of its buildings and first renewable installations, the city is now exploring new pathways. Michal and Martin tell us what these pathways are and how much the size of a city matters (or not). More and more European cities have vowed to become climate-neutral by mid-century or even earlier. Only a few have managed yet to draft precise and tangible transition plans. The EUCityCalc project supports cities in data-driven decision-making: With funding from the EU Horizon 2020 program, the project will release the European City Calculator webtool. This is an open-source instrument with which cities can plan their measures to bring CO2 emissions down to zero.