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The Research and Development department of EDF and the Research and Innovation department of Veolia (VERI) signed today a Memorandum of Understanding with the Housing Development Board of Singapore (HDB).

EDF R&D and VERI propose, through a dedicated project, "ForCity", to build a decision- support tool for Singapore urban planning based on Singapore's challenges and systemic models. This tool will be developed in close collaboration with the Housing Development Board (HDB), and with the support of two local authorities, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Economic Development Board (EDB). This decision support tool will enable Singapore to optimize its strategic choices by allowing the comparison of different strategies through maps, 3D scenes, graphics and tables. It will deliver short-term tools for decision support for urban development of the district of Jurong East and other parts of Singapore.

This project gathers a unique expertise developed by operating utilities in cities around the world, optimizing long and midterm urban development by handling the complex interactions between topics such as energy, waste, water and transport management, and specifically by placing the general public at the centre of its approach.

The MOU covers the following topics: the most efficient coupling of buildings (residential and tertiary), cooling and waste collection, strategies for an existing or new HDB town and "Greenprint" issues (Singapore's ecological development plan), such as Photo Voltaic integration, green roofs and water recycling at the local level.

This MOU is the first step for a very ambitious and fruitful collaboration on sustainable city projects with the creation of a Center of excellence dedicated to research and innovations for urban planning using complex systems modeling. The objective is to address Singapore's ambitious challenges and from this leading city, to help other S.E. Asian Nations with solving complex planning decisions.

Mr Yeoh Keat Chuan, Chairman of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said: "We are delighted that EDF and Veolia has decided a Global Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cities and collaborating with Singapore government agencies on urban planning design. This investment affirms Singapore's position as a Living Lab where companies can develop, trial and commercialize innovative solutions in a real-life urban environment. This is also aligned with Singapore's push to grow the clean technology and urban sustainability sectors."

Mr Tan Siong Leng, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), said: "We are encouraged to see this collaboration between HDB and EDF and Veolia. As cities grow, land use planners have to take into account the increasingly complex inter-dependencies in the different urban systems that make up a city- for example, the energy grid, water and waste management network, transportation and utilities. This complex systems modeling tool can potentially complement our work by quantifying these inter-relationships and how they change with different land use plans, as well as recommend planning and urban design strategies that can be adopted to enhance Singapore's livability and resilience."