Aarhus Awarded the EU Mission Label at Cities Mission Conference in Vilnius
- pavel7733
- May 13
- 3 min read
In May 2025, the European urban climate policy reached another milestone. 39 cities from within the EU and beyond (UK, Turkey, Norway, Iceland) received the EU Mission Label for their unwavering commitment to net zero, bringing the total number of award recipients to 92. Among the cities that received the Label in the latest round was Aarhus.
Commenting on the award at the ceremony in Vilnius, Rolf Johnsen of Aarhus Municipality said: “It’s so exciting to see Aarhus getting the recognition for its work on urban climate policy. We will use the EU Mission Label as a platform to create new exciting implementation projects, alliances and friendships across Europe.”
Aarhus path to climate neutrality
City’s annual emissions amount to 1.3 million tonnes CO2e, spread between transport, energy, waste, industrial processes, agriculture, forestry and other land uses. If the business-as-usual trend continues, Aarhus will fall short of reaching the net-zero target by 846,000 tonnes CO2e, meaning that two thirds of the footprint will not be neutralised.
To prevent this and ensure Aarhus does become climate neutral by 2030, a variety of initiatives are foreseen in various domains, ranging from opening a new carbon capture facility and increasing the share of geothermal power in the energy mix, to electrifying transport, installing more solar panels, and establishing “+ energy” districts.
Positive Energy District in Aarhus
Aarhus is piloting the PED concept within the BIPED project. The area chosen for PED development is Brabrand, located 6km west of the city centre. The district is undergoing a major transformation, especially in the Gellerup neighbourhood, home to numerous housing estates built in the 1960s. Many of these multi-story apartment blocks are being refurbished and repurposed to achieve better energy performance, in line with the ‘renovation wave.’
The district has its first energy community called Sol over Brabrand, whose members want to become self-sufficient in electricity by installing solar panels on the roofs of all building types (public, residential, commercial).
Building the Brabrand PED with Local Digital Twin
To help the community and other stakeholders make informed investment decisions regarding solar panels, BIPED is developing a solar profitability calculator. The tool will be integrated into the 3D model of Aarhus, so that users can easily navigate and pick any building for which they want to see the results (yield, energy balance, investment cost, savings, CO2 reduction).
In addition, the LDT will perform energy and traffic modeling to identify the best pathways for PED design, and will assess the potential of urban planning measures to improve living conditions in terms of noise and air pollution.
Showcasing BIPED at the Cities Missions conference
To celebrate Aarhus’ award and introduce BIPED to the community of climate-neutral cities, three members of the project team travelled to Vilnius for the Cities Mission conference, which took place on 6-8 May 2025.
Pavel Kogut (Digital Resilience Institute), Shahrzad M. Pour (Danish Technical University) and Ivy Yang (Open and Agile Smart Cities) were busy talking to delegates about PEDs and LDTs. They explained how these innovative concepts can contribute to energy transition through an ambitious district transformation that is green, digital and citizen-driven. Most discussions took place on the exhibition floor where BIPED shared a booth with four other PED projects: ASCEND, NEUTRALPATH, TIPS4PED, and exPEDite.
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