Länsiväylä, the local newspaper delivered to every citizen’s home in Espoo, wrote a news about SPARCS-project and its demosite Lippulaiva – the new urban shopping center that is being built in Espoonlahti. The news concentrated on the sustainable solutions of Lippulaiva, such as its 4 MW regenerative ground source heat pump plant and 50 km of bore holes.

Besides the energy solutions, the news described the citizen engagement actions started in Espoo within SPARCS-project. Citycon together with SPARCS-partners started a Lippulaiva Buddy Class action where we meet a local class of 7^th graders a few times per year for three years time. In the first meeting with the Buddy Class, we organized a co-creation workshop where students gave us ideas about how “Our Lippulaiva” would look like.

One of the targets of the SPARCS project is to give information on sustainable solutions to citizens. In the case of Lippulaiva, we want to tell citizens of all ages how sustainability is important. For example, the playground area of Lippulaiva will have an energy and science theme. And for our Buddy Class, we will teach sustainable energy production technologies using the solutions of Lippulaiva as examples.