How does a city organise its transition towards climate neutrality? On 19 August, a group of students from Doshisha University in Kyoto came to Ghent to find out and to learn first-hand from the NEUTRALPATH Living Lab in the Muide Meulestede district.
Roeland Keersmaekers and Nina Vanhaeren from the City of Ghent, together with Hannelore Scheipers from Ghent University, welcomed the students to Muide Meulestede for a day dedicated to understanding how the urban energy transition takes shape on the ground.
The students are enrolled in the On-site Group Work module of Doshisha University’s Global Resource Management Program and were in Ghent for a week-long exchange, guided by Professor Yuko Onishi (Doshisha University) and Professor De Paepe (Ghent University). Their Wednesday programme focused entirely on how the city is organising its transition.
The day began with a visit to the Luminus power plant, which supplies the heat for Ghent’s largest district heating network. After lunch, the group moved to Muide Meulestede, where Nina Vanhaeren introduced the district, the social challenges it faces, and the question at the heart of any just transition: how to engage everyone in the shift to clean energy. A walk through the neighbourhood followed, showcasing a number of local initiatives.
Roeland Keersmaekers and Hannelore Scheipers then presented the lessons learned from Living Lab Muide Meulestede, launched as part of the Horizon Europe project NEUTRALPATH. Roeland set out how the Living Lab arrived at an integrated, district-wide approach, the advantages of working collectively, and the challenges that still lie ahead. Hannelore addressed the transition from a research and engineering perspective, explaining why data is essential to build a thorough understanding of the district and to explore technical solutions – while stressing that the final solutions are always shaped by socio-economic factors too. It is precisely for this reason that collaboration across disciplines remains crucial.
The exchange offered the Doshisha students a concrete look at how a European city translates climate ambitions into district-level action and gave the NEUTRALPATH partners in Ghent a valuable opportunity to share their experience with an international audience.
Image credits: City and University of Ghent
