New growth hub to boost the export of sustainable cities

Date: 07/06/2016

The BLOXHUB  – Denmark’s new innovation and growth hub in sustainable urbanisation is now a reality. The establishment is headed by the Danish Ministry of Business and Growth, the City of Copenhagen and Realdania. COWI’s CEO, Lars-Peter Søbye, has been appointed chairman of the board.

​Some 500 corporate executives, researchers and industry professionals in architecture, buildings, urban development and design met on Friday at Fæstningens Materialgård near Copenhagen Port to celebrate the official establishment of BLOXHUB.

The organisation aims to boost sustainable urbanisation solutions globally and strengthen Denmark as an exporter of sustainable  solutions to large cities across the world.

The Danish Minister of Business and Growth, Troels Lund Poulsen, says: ”Over the next three decades, we’ll need to establish urban areas for more than three billion people, and naturally Danish companies should get their share of the cake. Danish companies have a history of working together across sectors and disciplines, and we possess competencies in creative professions. All of this will be boosted by the formation of BLOXHUB, which will hopefully provide a framework for new innovation and new collaborations which will allow us to utilise the growth potential within the global urbanisation trend.”

Lord Mayer of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, adds: “BLOXHUB will be a central piece of the City of Copenhagen’s growth policy, and we’re already exporting sustainable urban solutions. Each year, hundreds of delegations visit the city to learn from us, and large cities such as Beijing and New York look to us for ideas on how to protect themselves from cloudbursts and how to establish bicycle paths and green areas. BLOXHUB helps us further our leading position in green solutions, which will result in growth and jobs.”

COWI believes in digital innovation
Lars-Peter Søbye, CEO of COWI, has been appointed chairman of the board of the organisation. A position that he looks forward to filling: “In my opinion, BLOXHUB is a unique possibility of further strengthening cooperation between private actors and knowledge environments. And I’m excited to contribute to supporting joint innovation initiatives that can position Denmark’s competencies on the international scene and put sustainable urbanisation on the agenda in general,” he says, and continues: “To a company like COWI, which operates in a global market where projects constantly grow in complexity and size, we have to be able to work innovatively to stay competitive and we must seize the new possibilities that emerge, particularly as a result of digitisation – across our sustainable solutions in infrastructure, energy, water, environment and complex buildings.”

Source: Cowi