European Climate Session
What was the question?
Eindhoven and Helmond were selected for the European ‘100 Climate Neutral Cities’ programme, with the aim of achieving climate neutrality by 2030. Yellowchess was asked to devise an approach centred on substance: what breakthroughs are needed, and how can this become everyone’s mission?
What have we done?
The challenge was not only to organise a participatory process, but to turn this mission into a genuine city-wide movement: the local authority, businesses, residents and organisations all taking joint ownership of the ambition. In a Breakthrough Lab, an Innovation and Future Lab at the Evoluon involving more than 250 businesses, and an Activation Lab, organisations made concrete commitments. Partly as a result of this, the climate contract was approved and ratified by the EU.
What were the results?
The labs were carefully designed: small enough to foster a sense of ownership, yet large enough to make an impact. Participants took the decisions they had made back to their organisations themselves, rather than having a decision imposed on them. In this way, ‘What if we succeed?’ became not just rhetoric, but a shared starting point for concrete action.
