Although the presence of coal in the country’s energy mix is The project was based on three main pillars: relatively small, the Netherlands is not at the forefront of a • Making Smart Grids Smarter: The Dutch distribution sustainable energy mix. The country has one of the smallest systems operator collaborated with companies such as renewable energy shares out of all European Union member EXE, NewMotion, and Enervalis to run a new kind of smart states. With only 6.6 percent of the energy share coming grid pilot in Amsterdam (CZSC, 2019). This collaboration from renewables, the Netherlands is second to last, after helped to identify three main projects to make the pilot Luxembourg (Eurostat, 2019). succeed: Vehicle to Grid, Virtual Powerplant, and End-to- End Smartification (CZSC, 2019). On a more positive note, Dutch households have among the • Hot and Cold Energy: In Amsterdam, improvements centered lowest electricity use rates in the EU. With average usage on the production of hot and cold energy have allowed the of approximately 8KWh a day, the Netherlands has the most city to reduce CO emissions by around 1,815 tons per year2 efficient Western European families (WindEurope, 2018). (CZSC, 2019). Regarding Amsterdam specifically, its CO emissions come2 • Retrofitting the Future: Amsterdam invested twenty-six million from these three sectors: industry (12 percent), transport (20 euros in enhancing residential energy supply systems in the percent), and the built environment (68 percent, of which 26 city, but it took more than eighteen months to find enough percent corresponds to residential housing and 42 percent to spaces that were suitable for retrofitting (CZSC, 2019). services) (Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands, 2016). The City-zen Project pioneered no fewer than twenty innovations In the Amsterdam 2040 Energy Strategy, the municipality of in Grenoble and Amsterdam, capturing thirty-five thousand tons Amsterdam states the importance of a transition to sustainable of CO, renovating residential buildings covering a total floor2 energy and outlines critical targets in this area. Amsterdam is area of seventy-six thousand square meters, and connecting aiming for a 40 percent reduction in CO emissions by 2025, and2 ten thousand dwellings to a smart grid (CZSC, 2019). a 70 percent reduction by 2040, compared to 1990 levels (The City of Amsterdam, 2015). 5.3 The edge building The primary objectives and timelines defined by the city are Amsterdam is home to the Edge, the world’s smartest office (City of Amsterdam Website, 2019): building (Randall, 2015). The Edge received the highest •Becoming an emissions-free city by 2030, generating 80 sustainability score that the British rating agency BREEAM had percent of the electricity used by households with solar ever awarded: 98.4 percent. The Dutch have a phrase for this energy, and reducing CO emissions by 55 percent;2 building’s philosophy: “Het Nieuwe Werken,” or in English, “The Ending the use of natural gas in the city by 2040; new way of working.”10 • •Reducing CO emissions by 55 percent by 2030, and by 952 percent by 2050; The Edge is Deloitte’s Dutch headquarters, and it runs on a data •Within the current decade, making the city exclusively use system that controls how the building operates. It is packed with emission-free road and water transport; approximately twenty-eight thousand sensors, which, among other •Making Amsterdam a circular city—that is, everything that things, identify cars in the underground parking lot and, together is produced and consumed should be reusable—by 2050. with a smartphone app, guide individuals through the building. In total, 2,500 workers share a thousand desks via hot desking, 5.2. City-zen project with a smartphone app being used to assign desks and rooms to workers based on their schedule. There are sensors in every seat. The City-zen Project was granted EU funding “to develop and demonstrate energy-efficient cities and build a methodology and One goal of the Edge is to encourage human interaction and new tools for cities, industries, and citizens to reach the 20-20-20 relationships. Moreover, workers can control both the temperature targets” (City-zen Smart City,9 2019). The project, which started and light at their desks. Their computer data is instantly uploaded in 2014, focused on two main cities: Amsterdam and Grenoble. to a cloud system that is integrated into the LED lighting system. It was involved in twenty pilot projects with no fewer than twenty- Aside from its smart elements, the Edge is a green building. It is eight collaborators, among them Waternet and Amsterdam carbon neutral and produces more energy than it consumes owing Economic Board. The City-zen Project aimed to eliminate fifty- to its extensive solar panel installation and the natural heat pumps nine thousand tons of CO every year (CZSC, 2019).2 that are currently under construction. (9) City-zen Smart City: CZSC below. (10) http://www.plparchitecture.com/the-edge.html (accessed on 5 April 2021). 71 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021