City: Torino, Italy

Reporting to: Head of the Mayor’s Cabinet and of Institutional Communication

The Challenge

Torino has been selected among 100 European cities (9 in Italy) that will strive to realize a roadmap to climate neutrality by 2030 by developing a shared contract with businesses and residents across activities and sectors. This shared contract, referred to as the Climate City Contract (CCC), is meant to include a comprehensive strategy for achieving climate neutrality in all sectors, including energy, buildings, waste management, and transportation, as well as corresponding investment plans. There is considerable funding coming from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan to support this work. The city’s leadership would like to craft a narrative that tells the story of ongoing actions and projects supported by this funding and to actively engage key stakeholders, including residents, in the work. The goal is to foster communication and participation pathways to increase awareness and engender wide participation, across social and economic boundaries. City leadership wants to craft a narrative of a city that is embracing change and moving towards achieving challenging climate goals. Improving and fostering the city’s ability to communicate will help the city strengthen a pact of collaboration and transparency with its citizens and enable better understanding of sometimes difficult and complex choices.

The city is currently defining the CCC, the living document that will guide Torino towards climate neutrality by 2030, in collaboration with Politecnico di Torino and other major city entities. Several projects have been launched thanks to European and national funds that are at the center of the roadmap called “Torino changes.” Many private and third sector entities have been called upon to become partners and/or supporters of the initiatives already launched. Starting with the skills acquired by the city in the context of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative’s Data Track, the fellow would aim to enhance and foster the communication process of the actions that the city of Torino is implementing to promote the ecological and environmental transition, particularly in the context of the CCC. The data and information shared with the public and key stakeholders will provide a shared basis for discussion and understanding and allow the city to evaluate the effectiveness of its action plans. In particular, the fellow will help craft a strategy that is informed by the city’s work on the permitting process as part of the Data Track. The goal is to tell the story of a city that wants to become attractive for investment and that uses data to convey the new permitting process that is embedded in a city undergoing development and urban regeneration in line with its climate neutrality ambitions (emissions reductions, dematerialization and efficient resource use, etc.). It will be carried out with a focus on climate neutrality, being among the 100 European cities selected to achieve this goal.

Working closely with the administrative team managing communication within the Department of the Mayor’s Cabinet, the fellow will support the team to finalize a communication strategy to convey the permitting system of the city of Torino.

What You’ll Do

To address these questions, the fellow, as part of the city team, will engage with residents, businesses, and key stakeholders.

Key Deliverables Include:

1. Develop full insight into the actions and projects implemented to date, underway, and planned by the city and their associated impacts on the environmental and/or with regard to sustainability.
2. Define communication and engagement target audiences.
3. Craft a communication and engagement strategy to adequately reach key audiences.
4. If time allows, help start to implement the strategy.

What You’ll Bring

The fellow will be expected to possess the following skills:

• Data analysis
• Qualitative interviewing and analysis
• Marketing
• Design Thinking
• Writing and editing
• Communications
• Language proficiency in Italian is strongly preferred but not required

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