¹û¶³Ó°Ôº

Rennes has been in the vanguard of action on sustainability. Back in 1981, it was the first major city to implement differentiated management of green spaces, was a pioneer of public health initiatives through the founding of the French Healthy Cities Network in 1994. Today, an important policy objective in moving towards a resilient zero carbon city is the low carbon transition (50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption by 2030), within which shorter-term targets are part of Rennes’ essential first steps in an evolving, ambitious programme to achieve far-reaching change. Its Climate Plan will have 10 objectives and 109 actions, with 350 million euros invested by 2024. Already committed to healthy sustainable development, Rennes’ aim is to now translate its environmental commitments into commensurate action through testing an inclusive and equitable process that all residents are able to both contribute to and benefit from. Examples of actions include very low carbon transport systems and the promotion of active travel options and electric public transport, 20% of the city's area to become green space or watershed protection, to avoid heat islands, and improve health and well-being, high efficient building stock and the renovation of 6,000 public and private housing units per year, and  the decarbonization of the energy supply using clean renewable options, so that by 2020, 100% of municipal facilities will be supplied using sustainable electricity, and 50% of their heating sourced from district heating networks. 

The CUSSH project has been co-created with city stakeholders, through the use of a Participatory System Dynamics framework. Although many relevant datasets on urban sustainability and health are available in Rennes, there has been no formalized way of collaborating around complex systems issues. Rennes values the input of CUSSH expertise to develop health and sustainability evidence, and inform decision-making and implementation by identifying interventions in the city that maximize co-benefits and minimize negative unintended consequences.

Image credit: Jeremias Gonzalez