The year 2022 was important to consolidate the foundations of the HIDS project (International Hub for Sustainable Development). This is the assessment of the rector of Unicamp, Antonio José de Almeida Meirelles, about the project. According to him, there was a significant rapprochement between the involved institutions that already participate in HIDS, and the proposal for master plan drawn up by KRIHS has been able to bring together common interests, especially among the institutions of the HIDS Founding Advisory Council, which brings together 14 entities already present in the HIDS territory. The KRIHS, or Korean Research Institute for Human Settlement, was hired by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to draw up an occupation plan for the HIDS territory. The proposal was delivered in September, after a visit to Korea by a group made up of members of the Campinas City Hall, Unicamp and PUC-Campinas teams to discuss the project and learn about the Korean experience in creating technology parks and cities smart.
“The KRIHS proposal also dialogues with what we have been doing at the University and with our investments in energy transition projects, bioenergy, sustainable agriculture and in the health area. HIDS should help consolidate, aggregate and expand these initiatives in the territory of Hacienda Argentina”, believes Meirelles. According to him, this will be the focus of the HIDS project in 2023. Once the agreement with the IDB is finalized, the initiatives related to the Hub will be conducted by the “Coordination of Implementation of HIDS Unicamp” team (Resolution No. 23/2022), whose formalization is the first step in creating a stable institutional structure exclusively dedicated to HIDS. “The creation of the Coordination was motivated by the need to disseminate a look at the future at the University. HIDS is part of that,” said the rector.
Among the objectives of the Coordination are: outline an occupation plan for the HIDS at Unicamp in the space of the former Argentine Farm, evaluate the adherence of the projects to be implemented with the principles of sustainability and prospect partnerships that will assist in the implementation of the project. The new commission is coordinated by the professor at the Institute of Economics and current coordinator of the HIDS project at Unicamp, Mariano Laplane.
In addition to him, the team also includes Marcelo Cunha, coordinator of the HIDS sustainability assessment component; Gabriela Celani, coordinator of the HIDS physical-spatial project component; Miguel Bacic, coordinator of the business model component of HIDS; Thalita Dalbelo, sustainability coordinator at Unicamp, an area linked to the Sustainable Campus Office; Wesley Silva, coordinator of the Heritage component of HIDS; Eduardo Gurgel, director of Unicamp's Scientific and Technological Park, linked to Inova Unicamp; Adriana Nunes, assistant chief of staff at Unicamp and Sônia Regina da Cal Seixas, professor at Nepam and president of the Advisory Committee on Ecological Change and Environmental Justice (Cameja), linked to the Executive Board of Human Rights (DeDH).
One of the Coordination's challenges is to establish a set of principles for HIDS within the scope of Unicamp and disseminate them to the entire community, in order to engage researchers, professors, students and employees in projects that can be developed at Fazenda Argentina, which represents almost 60% of the total territory of HIDS. According to Laplane, the team is already working on the elaboration of principles for HIDS Unicamp. “We hope to establish a kind of platform to collect contributions from the community,” he said.
One example is the pilot project for a photovoltaic plant associated with the production of green hydrogen, in partnership with the Sustainable Campus project. Studies are also being carried out for the creation of a HIDS biodiversity monitoring system, with support from Embrapa and CPQD. Next year will also start the first actions of the strategic project of ecological corridors that will restore and connect remnants of native forest in the region of Fazenda Argentina, an area of 1,4 million square meters acquired by Unicamp in 2014. The connection between the forest fragments should allow the genetic exchange of fauna and flora species.
The plan also contemplates the connection and recovery of water sources. The forecast is that, in five years, 217.000m² of ecological corridors, 300.000m² of planting area, 92 meters of fauna passageways and 6.500 meters of corridor enclosures will be created. “We chose to initiate HIDS Unicamp actions for this environmental recovery project. It is symbolic in the sense of showing that we want to reconcile development, innovation and sustainability”, highlighted Meirelles. The dean believes that this initiative can encourage other institutions in the HIDS area to create similar projects. This will be one of the agendas of the last HIDS Council meeting of the year, which takes place today at CPQD.
The expectation is that HIDS will consolidate Unicamp's tradition of research in innovation and sustainability, but at a higher level, in an action shared with companies of various sizes and public entities. “This is one of the ways for this agenda to penetrate even more in society and generate examples of possibilities for sustainable development, whether at Unicamp or at HIDS as a whole”, concluded Meirelles.
History
In March 2020, Unicamp, the Campinas City Hall and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) signed a agreement to leverage the project to create a HIDS in Campinas. Under the terms of the agreement, the IDB invested US$ 1 million in non-refundable funds in studies and consultancy that supported the preparation of a master plan for the Hub area, a total of 11 million square meters. In September of this year, after two visits to Brazil and a Brazilian mission to Korea, KRIHS, the Korean institute hired by the Bank to draw up the master plan, submitted a proposal for a master plan and a strategy for implementing the Hub, based on a development plan in phases, investment and the role of each of the stakeholders.
Through land use distribution guidelines, mobility, networks, green corridors and types of activities, it is expected to increase the built area and residential densities to support investment in public transport corridors, promote development and activities of mixed use, preserve and open up natural spaces and develop a sustainable urban transport strategy based on non-motorized alternatives such as bicycles.
Part of the KRIHS suggestions were incorporated into the text of the new Land Use and Occupation Law prepared by the Campinas City Hall for the PIDS area (International Pole for Sustainable Development), of which HIDS Unicamp is a part. The project will be presented in public hearings scheduled for January 2023.
Read more:
HIDS: a window of opportunity for implementing the SDGs in a territory
