Over 30 partner organisations in the fields of academia, business and government, from across Europe, met in Royal Greenwich as part of the European Union funded 'Sharing Cities' programme.

Sharing Cities

Sharing Cities works in hand with the borough's Low Emission Neighbourhood (LEN) programme to implement new schemes to tackle local air quality.

The theme of the consortium meeting was 'Delivery and Innovation through Collaboration' with the partners sharing their experiences of implementing innovative trials in the fields of building retrofit, smart energy management systems, electric mobility, smart lampposts, data platforms and citizen engagement.

Zero Emission Deliveries

The Royal Borough also took the opportunity to launch a brand new project called Zero Emission Deliveries (ZED), which aims to reduce congestion and poor air quality in Greenwich caused by delivery vehicles. This will be the first council supported, cargo bike zero emission delivery scheme in London.

The ZED project will offer local residents and businesses a professional delivery service which can transport everything from letters and parcels through to goods weighing up to 200kg, while contributing zero emissions into the local environment.

The company chosen to operate the service 'Recharge Cargo' has a proven track record operating an entirely cycle based fleet of vehicles in Brighton, and pays its staff the London Living Wage.

Electric bike loan scheme

The Royal Borough is also launching a new low emission initiative for its residents, which is an electric bike loan scheme. Residents can borrow an e-bike for a month to trial the technology and see how it can help them cycle more and further around London. All participating residents will be fully supported throughout the month and the travel data collected will be evaluated by Imperial College London.

'Provide a cleaner alternative for local businesses'

Councillor Sizwe James, Cabinet Member for Transport, Economy and Smart Cities said, "Deliveries contribute significantly to congestion and pollution and the new Zero Emission Delivery project should help provide a cleaner alternative for local businesses so they can minimise the impacts of their logistics movements, and help improve air quality locally."

'Meet the challenges of issues such as air pollution'

Nathan Pierce, Sharing Cities transnational Programme Director at the Greater London Authority said, "I'd like to thank everyone from Royal Greenwich and Digital Greenwich for making our stay so enjoyable and for hosting our latest consortium meeting. The people of Greenwich will undoubtedly benefit from the Sharing Cities scheme, in which some of the brightest and best brains in Europe are sharing their knowledge in an attempt to meet the challenges of issues such as air pollution and congestion."