GD:B will provide broad-based support for the expansion of innovative, sustainable and circular business models, ensuring a manageable process. For the area of IT*, this means making urban applications available to everyone and developing them openly in compliance with the legal framework. Not only startups and established companies, academia and public administration but also the art and culture scene as well as non-profit actors are to play a key role in developing creative, needs-oriented solutions and new value-added concepts in the important development field of regenerative management.
Digitalization can reveal previously unused potential and synergies for regenerative management and enable their use. As a growing city, Berlin can create a foundation for opening up new spaces and constructing buildings that are geared towards sustainability and changeability. The Berlin-Brandenburg region also offers great potential for creating further infrastructure for a circular and resource-efficient economy. Here, a culture of solidarity in sharing and repairing can be established and, together with Brandenburg, it will be possible to build up healthy, sustainable and local food production in the long term.
Field of action: Test and promote smart economic models
Smart economic and business models that combine inventiveness with sustainability, community orientation, and gender equality are key to Berlin’s economy. The development of new forms of enterprise in areas such as social entrepreneurship, digital cooperatives will receive greater support in the future, as will other locally based cooperative economic models. [24] For the development, implementation and sustainable, participatory operation of smart city solutions, new forms of cooperation between the state, public and private companies, startups, civil society organizations and Berlin’s science and research landscape are being tested and evaluated – examples include innovative operating models* and science-based startups that are emerging from Berlin’s universities.
Field of action: Develop an open IT ecosystem of urban applications
The foundation for a digital Berlin is an open and interoperable ecosystem* of digital applications. Citizen services and specialized procedures* run by the public administration are to consist of sub-modules and be linkable to each other via standardized interfaces so as to ensure efficient exchange of the relevant data. Wherever possible, open source components are to be used and newly developed codes are to be made available at a central location under an open license. Administrative data is made available to third parties in accordance with the open-by-default* principle if there are no serious reasons for not doing so, such as violations of data privacy. These developments are taking place in line with Berlin’s ICT* architecture. [25] The issues addressed here such as standardized procedures, open source, data management and open data are priority areas that are still in need of intense development in connection with the ICT architecture of the state of Berlin.
Field of action: Develop Berlin-Brandenburg as a smart capital region
Integrative planning of urban development, public transport, energy supply, other infrastructures and agriculture between Berlin and Brandenburg will promote the development of a smart capital region. For this reason, urban development processes in the Berlin-Brandenburg region are to be even more closely coordinated between the two states. This is also in line with the Strategischer Gesamtrahmen Hauptstadtregion (“Overall strategic framework for the capital region”) with its fields of action Digital Transformation and Residential Development and Housing Market. [26] Co-working spaces, including childcare infrastructure for better compatibility of care and work, are to be designed to support the flexibility of those living and working in the capital region. Closer dialog is to be promoted between the diverse innovative companies and startups in the capital region.
Field of action: Promote regeneration of natural resources locally
Natural and non-renewable resources are limited, so smart use must reduce their consumption and integrate them in material cycles. Here, the urban community must first recognize the intrinsic value and services provided by ecosystems and be motivated to invest in their regenerative capacity. Neighborhood sustainability is promoted by establishing coordinated cycles in terms of supply – water, urban greenery, food, energy and consumer goods – and also disposal, including residential waste and construction/demolition waste. The consumption of natural and non-renewable resources is also to be organized more efficiently at the local level – buildings, mobility. This development towards a smart, regenerative Berlin is being tested based on new urban development projects, for example, such as the Schumacher Quartier and the adjacent Urban Tech Republic. [27]
