ARV Showcases Climate-Positive Urban Innovations at Smart City Expo World Congress 2025

The ARV project took part in the Smart City Expo World Congress 2025, held in Barcelona from 5–7 November 2025, the world’s leading event for urban innovation. The project presented its latest tools, strategies, and demonstration cases, showing how climate-positive circular communities (CPCCs) can help European cities become more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient.

Participative Governance and Community Engagement

On Tuesday, Caroline Cheng (SINTEF) contributed to the session “Making Urban Governance Participative, Impactful and Replicable.” Caroline introduced ARV’s S.M.I.L.E. methodology for community engagement, which guides projects in identifying and reaching target groups, mapping relevant stakeholders, and preserving end-users’ perspectives by channeling their competences and experiences. The approach addresses a common gap in sustainable urban projects: active resident engagement and feedback are often the missing or weakest link in processes of sustainable neighbourhood transformation. She then highlighted the Spanish demo case “The Llevant Innovation District” in Palma de Mallorca, where 64 families collaborated on a full building retrofit, demonstrating how collaborative, participative urban governance can be impactful and replicable across Europe.

Future-Proofing Cities Through Collaboration

On Wednesday, Amin Haddadi (OBF) joined representatives from leading EU projects — ASCEND, NEUTRALPATH, oPEN Lab, IURC, and RESPONSE — in the session “Future-Proofing Cities: Sustainable Innovations for Livable Urban Spaces” at the Infrastructure & Building Stage. Amin showcased ARV’s Voldsløkka demonstration case, emphasising how technical resilience, aligned business models, and community engagement contribute to long-term success in climate-positive urban regeneration.

Tools and Processes to Facilitate Urban Regeneration

Later that day, Kelly Riedesel (NTNU), Jaume Salom (IREC), Jannika Aalto (GDFA), and Sofiane Kichou (CVUT) hosted an interactive booth session titled “Tools and Processes to Facilitate Urban Regeneration.” The session presented ARV’s integrated digital toolkit supporting urban regeneration from planning to implementation. This included Web Visor tools for 3D mapping, visualisation, and data-driven analysis, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications to enhance participatory design, the DORES tool for techno-economic analysis of community energy systems, and innovative financial mechanisms such as Retrofit Carbon Credits and Digital Green Bonds. These solutions make urban regeneration both technically and financially viable while fostering community participation.

Throughout the week, ARV demonstrated how collaboration among research institutions, municipalities, industry, and citizens can accelerate Europe’s transition to sustainable and inclusive cities. The project emphasised that achieving climate neutrality requires not only innovative technologies but also new governance models, financial tools, and strong community engagement.

ARV’s presence at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2025 reinforces its role as a frontrunner in climate-positive circular communities, offering scalable solutions for the cities of tomorrow.