Urgently needed innovation in twin transitions will bring about transformations that significantly impact people's everyday lives. These transitions must be science-based and sensitive to actual societal needs to ensure they realize their full socio-environmental benefits. Implementing an approach that is focused on collaborative knowledge valorisation (CKV) and supports collaboration across the quadruple helix (QH) has a powerful potential of moving such innovations beyond the current state of affairs and achieving much more sustainable and better rooted impact. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) have emerged as a promising field where participatory planning and co-design have been experimented with recently, resulting in innovative best practices. These approaches have provided essential experience in uniting local residents, businesses, academia, and decision-makers to enhance green and blue infrastructures in a participatory and inclusive manner. A lack of knowledge, resources, and skills often hinders the maintenance of NBS, affecting ecosystem integrity and the provision of ecosystem services essential for climate change adaptation and mitigation. GreenEsteem builds on and advances best practices in the field of NBS through piloting the co-evaluation and co-design of sustainable NBS in two living labs (Konin & Sofia). Based on pilot outcomes and with strong support of expert groups and national expert roundtables, a comprehensive training program for CKV are established to tackle barriers and skill gaps among QH stakeholders. Strategic roadmaps and events launch and intensify cross-fertilization networks engaged in the green transition. Supported by an online platform featuring best practice toolkits, online training modules, a digital handbook, and policy recommendations, GreenEsteem is designed to reach practitioners, citizens and researchers alike, ensuring the replication of best practices of collaborative knowledge valorisation across Europe.

The EU energy system strongly relies on centralised electricity generation and on fuel imports, with 95% of its oil and 84% of its gas consumption sourced from outside the EU. The REPowerEU Plan proposes a set of actions to reduce the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels and diversify its energy supply ‘well before 2030’. The three pillars of the plan are to ramp up the production of green energy, diversify our energy supplies, and reduce our demand for fossil gas, coal and oil. Renewable energy valleys are understood as decentralised renewable energy systems that offer a viable and efficient solution to these challenges mentioned above. By implementing a high degree of renewable energy sources as well as storage technologies and intelligent management algorithms for synergetic use of a wide variety of technologies, they can be 100% self-sufficient on a yearly basis. For the next 5 years, the REFORMERS project aims to develop, implement an exploit such an energy valley in the Boekelermeer next to the city of Alkmaar in the Netherlands, that serves as a living lab for testing and validating technologies, business models, stakeholder ecosystems, including industrial partners, DSO, the municipality, and residents, and user acceptance in real-life circumstances, in a peri-urban and industrial environment. Furthermore, the project aims to support the deployment of multiple self-sufficient energy valleys throughout Europe beyond the flagship in the Netherlands. Therefore, it will deliver a roll-out blue print and replication toolbox that encompass: (i) Energy System Design, (ii) Environmental Impact Assessment, (iii), Stakeholder Engagement and Social impact assessment, (iv) Governance and policy assessment, and (v) Business modelling, and allow other sites and regions to develop a pathway towards a carbon neutral and self-sufficient energy valley, that can be fed into e.g., a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan.