At this year’s CEES 2025 conference in Bari, Italy, held from June 13–15, the POSEIDON project was proud to present two contributions highlighting our work toward building Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) across the Mediterranean. POSEIDON is a DUT-funded initiative that supports six partner cities — Alcorcón, Antalya, Cascais, Cesena, Marseille, and Rome — in designing inclusive, locally tailored pathways for energy transition. Through tools like Urban Living Labs, participatory governance models, and environmental impact assessments, the project aims to create climate-neutral, resilient, and socially embedded districts. The two papers presented at CEES emphasized POSEIDON’s social and environmental dimensions — both central to our vision of sustainable urban transformation.
Martina Dell’Unto presented the POSEIDON project’s approach to implementing Urban Living Labs (ULLs) as inclusive frameworks for neighborhood-scale energy transition. Her paper, An inclusive tool to support the implementation of Urban Living Labs in Positive Energy Districts, outlined the seven-stage governance framework developed within POSEIDON. This model is grounded in the quadruple helix approach — ensuring that civil society, academia, businesses, and public institutions are active participants in shaping the transition. By distinguishing between processes “designed by users” and “designed with users,” the model provides cities with practical guidance on balancing leadership, participation, and community ownership. The presentation reinforced the need to embed community voice at the heart of PED governance and provided insights into how POSEIDON’s methodology supports such alignment.
Bahanur Nasya presented Rivercity – flooding as a potential to rework urban planning, a deep dive into the city of Cesena’s response to the 2023 floods along the Savio River. The presentation explored how Cesena’s environmental identity and cultural connection to the river are being redefined through a collective response to climate risk. Using the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Impact Model as an evaluation framework, the study highlighted the importance of bridging public-private cooperation and embedding community perspectives in sustainable district planning.
The case underlines POSEIDON’s broader goals of fostering not just technical resilience, but social and cultural adaptability as well — key pillars in ensuring that energy and environmental strategies are inclusive, holistic, and rooted in place.
Together, these contributions showcased POSEIDON’s commitment to people-centered energy transitions and its belief in collaborative, locally driven innovation. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue working with Mediterranean cities to shape climate-neutral and community-powered futures.
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