THE CONCEPT

The I-CHANGE project faces the challenge of engaging and promoting the active participation of citizens for addressing climate change, sustainable development and environmental protection in the framework of the European Green Deal, the European Climate Pact and the European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. 

The overall driving concept is that citizens and civil society have a central role in the definition of environmental protection and climate action and their direct involvement is essential to drive a true shift and promotion of changes of behaviours towards more sustainable patterns. Throughout a participatory approach, citizens will be equipped with practical tools and sensors, as well as knowledge and know-how practices and solutions to reduce their own personal carbon and environmental footprint and to support climate adaptation and mitigation, triggering individual and social innovation.

The activities of I-CHANGE will be strongly rooted in real society through interaction, co-development and cooperation with selected Living Labs and stakeholders. The project action will be also addressed to a wider section of society through dissemination and communication activities aiming at involving the communities by delivering tools for quantifying personal impacts on the environment, indicating concrete examples of behavioural changes and new habits to be adopted, and through Climate Actions training schools.

The enabling framework to implement the I-CHANGE concept is the Environmental Impact Hub (EIH), the integrated hub collecting data, tools and initiatives for citizen engagement. The EIH represents a participatory platform collecting highly heterogeneous data and information coming from a wide range of data sources (e.g., different sensors, environmental and earth observation, numerical models, social networks, etc.) and a considerable variety of software applications (e.g., social science, carbon footprint, meteorological and climate models, server and mobile apps, …) derived from the citizen science actions and initiatives related to the Living Labs. Moreover, the Hub aims to achieve a high level of interoperability with the major European initiatives for data sharing and computational infrastructures.