Co-Creation in European Urban Climate Neutrality Projects: When is it 'worth it'? SWOT analysis of co-creation in climate neutrality projects in Aarhus, Bristol, and Gothenburg

Sammanfattning

Co-creation is gaining popularity as a form of public participation, especially in urban environments, as a way to engage the public and private sectors more fully for increased solutions to complex challenges like climate change. However, co-creation can be expensive and take time and resources to implement. By conducting a literature review and interviewing co-creation participants from three European projects, this research explores the question of when and how co-creation’s advantages outweigh its disadvantages. Through the literature review, an analytical framework featuring the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of co-creation was developed. Using this framework, interviews with eight participants from three co-creation cases in Aarhus, Denmark (Co-SHAPE), Bristol, UK (Mission Net Zero), and Gothenburg, Sweden (MOSAIC) were analyzed to determine the effectiveness of co-creation in three different settings across Europe. An effective project had more advantages (strengths plus opportunities) than disadvantages (weaknesses plus threats). Based on these metrics, the Co-SHAPE and Mission Net Zero projects were effective, and the MOSAIC project was not. Each case portrayed different advantages and disadvantages of co-creation, but a few common patterns and lessons emerged, chief among them: having a pre-existing network of connections facilitates collaboration, dedicating time to create a common language is necessary, creating a balance between focus on outcomes and the process increases learnings, and main barriers included entrenched political traditions, bad communication, and the overall structure of laws influences project goals, design, and uptake of solutions. These findings provide lessons for city government officials looking to implement co-creation for the urban climate transition to enhance the success of such projects and their solutions. The analytical framework presented in this research also provides a means to evaluate the effectiveness of additional co-creation projects and create solutions generalizable to a wider range of cities to advance the urban climate transition.