Presentation of the Hub Criativo do Beato Living Lab project's Operations

Hub Criativo do Beato Living Lab is an initiative that aims to develop new technologies and services to promote the sustainability of Hub Criativo do Beato (HCB), and thus contribute with good practices to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Since the beginning Startup Lisboa, as the entity responsible for the design and implementation of the HCB, assumed sustainability as an essential dimension of the project. The HCB aims to be exemplary in the mobilization and implementation of urban strategies for sustainability and environmental resilience, and therefore the projects to be developed in this living lab intervene in four priority areas: Energy, Buildings, Mobility and Circular Economy & Environment, through nine structured operations that intend to achieve its ambition of becoming a smart campus and a permanent living laboratory. The project is based on the principle of the need for concerted action between the public and private sectors with a view to a just transition to a carbon-neutral society.

Aligned with the focus on the environmental sustainability aspect of HCB, Startup Lisboa, the entity responsible for the management of HCB, with the technical coordination of Lisboa E-Nova, with the Lisbon City Council as main partner and with partial funding from EEA Grants(1), implement the HCB Living Lab project, in consortium with partners, some of them residents of HCB: Carris, Circular, DST Solar, Innovation Point, Mota-Engil Renewing, Praça, Prio, Schréder, The Browers Company and Watt-IS.

The project is scheduled to last three years, ending in 2024.

"We want to transform the HCB into smart campus of excellence and contribute to the improvement of the project's environmental sustainability from the innovative operations we are launching today. Through this living lab, we also hope to motivate the city's entrepreneurial ecosystem to integrate sustainable solutions in the creation and development of their businesses, as well as inspire the creation of new living labs in other entrepreneurship ecosystems," comments Miguel Fontes, CEO of Startup Lisboa.

Through 9 distinct operations(2)the HCB LL will support the creation of an innovation ecosystem for urban transformation. Among these activities are:

  • the establishment of a Smart Energy Community, which unites producer-consumers, consumers, and electricity storage facilities, demonstrating an advanced concept of a renewable energy community based on the solar resource;
  • the implementation of an Smart Street Lighting, , which starts from the LED outdoor lighting system already installed in the HCB and to which several sensors will be attached that will allow an advanced management of the lighting system and ensure the reduction of energy consumption;
  • the creation of spaces for Urban Agriculture on the Factory Lisbon's roof, where a vegetable garden will be installed with distinct promotion and objectives: research, demonstration of production viability and community involvement;
  • the reduction of emissions in public transport with the Beato BioBus, which uses used cooking oil collected at HCB and the local community, to produce biodiesel to be used in buses that will serve HCB;
  • the implementation of a Circular Food System, which promotes circular economy in the HCB food chain, with the development of a materials flow tool associated with the catering system to evaluate short chain strategies with different territorial scopes and cycle closure;
  • the launch of a CleanTech Acceleration Program to promote and support the creation of innovative products and services dedicated to clean technologies;
  • the creation of the HCB i-Management Platform, an Intelligent Management Platform that brings together information from the different operations, allowing for the analysis and monitoring of the project's main KPIs, reinforcing the implementation of the smart city and allowing for the development of scientific and analytical knowledge for advanced city management;
  • the creation of an HCB Sensing and Charging, with an infrastructure of poles, equipped with occupancy and environmental sensors, sound systems, CCTV and charging of electric vehicles for soft mobility, complemented by a reference weather station and radiation sensors installed on the roofs of selected buildings;
  • the creation of the HCB Data Laboratory, as a core of CML's Urban Data Lab (LxDataLab), focused on challenges to the international scientific community in HCB's priority areas.

Expected outcomes

This initiative will make the HCB a large-scale demonstration space, a smart campus where the deployed actions, solutions and services are expected to demonstrate the potential for replication of the approaches in practice and in a real urban environment. The planned operations will benefit the HCB entities and community, the local scientific and entrepreneurial communities, as well as inform local public policies.

Amount invested

The global investment of the set of actions to be developed amounts to about 2 million euros, co-financed in about 40% by EEA Grants.

  1. A multi-annual financial mechanism, known as EEA Grants, through which Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway financially support the European Union member states with the greatest deviations from the European average GDP per capita, which includes Portugal.
  2. More information about the HCB Living Lab initiatives.link)
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