Road to Paris: Climate-KIC highlights innovation at European Adaptation Conference ECCA 2015

With the UN’s crucial COP21 climate change conference in December approaching, Climate-KIC makes the case for innovation at the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA) in Copenhagen with a key note, workshops and start-up showcase.

Amanda Cockroft, Deputy Director of Innovation at Climate-KIC gave a keynote statement named “Climate-KIC making an impact.”

In the closing session, Cockroft highlighted that innovation is crucial for tackling climate change, which is often framed as a very demanding global and costly problem – but it also provides opportunities for businesses and regional economic growth at all levels.

The event at Copenhagen’s Bella Center from 12 until 14 May 2015 was supported by Climate-KIC and follows international conferences in Australia and the United States.

Climate-KIC’s business workshops at ECCA illustrated the challenges posed by climate change and presented real-life stories of both new entrepreneurs and existing business partnerships from its community.

An exhibition stand (E nord011) showcased a number of Climate-KIC’s start-up companies and demonstrated how the organisation supports education, entrepreneurship and innovation to confront the challenge of climate change.

The Climate-KIC start-ups present at ECCA included Heliac (concentrated solar power) and Tube Barriers (flexible flood protection).

Workshop: Want to be a climate adaptation entrepreneur?

Climate-KIC’s first workshop at ECCA “Entrepreneurs in adaptation – making it happen!” took place on 13 May from 14:00 until 16:00 in meeting room 7. 

The workshop focused on the real issues for considerations by a panel of experts which includes Bente Pretlove, Programme Director, Climate Change, DNV GL – Strategic Research and Innovation; Bernd Hezel, Creative Scientist, Climate Media Factory and Harilaos Loukos, Board Member, Climpact-Metnext.

The full programme of the workshop is available for download (PDF).

Workshop: Partnerships – Collaborating to adapt

The next workshop “Collaborating to adapt – partnerships that deliver” took place on 13 May from 16:30 until 18:30 in meeting room 16.

One of the partnerships highlighted was the collaboration between consulting group COWI and Chalmers University of Technology and their clients Vejle Council and Gothenburg City, which are already succeeding in this new market.

The full programme of this workshop is available for download (PDF).

Adaptation conference

The European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA) 2015 is the second of its kind, following the first ECCA held in Hamburg 2013 which was attended by more than 700 participants.

It is an initiative of a number of major European research projects and other stakeholders. The conference covers a broad range of issues related to climate change adaptation and follows international adaptation conferences in Australia (Gold Coast, Queensland) in 2010 and in the United States (Tucson, Arizona) in 2012.

This European conference places a greater emphasis on understanding and assessing adaptation in action under the theme: Integrating climate adaptation action in science, policy, practice and business.