Governing the Twin Transition: how MICAD and RECODE projects are moving towards Inclusive Climate and Digital Futures
Authors: Karin Fossheim (RECODE project), Júlia Palmarola and Juliette De Gouberville (MICAD project)
As metropolitan areas navigate profound transformations, advancing climate and digital transitions has become a central priority on their agendas. European initiatives, such as MICAD (M) or its sister project RECODE MLG (R), offer complementary perspectives on how these transitions can be governed more inclusively and effectively.
This article explores how each of the mentioned projects addresses the twin transition through co-creation, metropolitan cooperation, and multilevel governance.
R: RECODE MLG examines how these two transitions interact by using co-creation within multilevel governance (MLG) as a way to align digital and environmental policy. The European Union (EU) is considered to be a driver of both sustainable and digital transformation and critical for the possibility of aligning the two as what has been called the “twin transition”. Yet its complex and differentiated MLG system has been associated with political challenges such as unaccountability, scarce institutional visibility, low citizen engagement, and technocratic policymaking. The success of the twin transition, therefore, depends on finding ways to open up EU’s MLG system to inclusive and democratic participation.
The overarching goal of “Rethinking Co-creation of Digital and Environmental Policy in Systems of Multilevel Governance” (RECODE MLG) is to promote a just, inclusive and democratic twin transition through multilevel governance (MLG) co-creation. The project will produce policy recommendations, a practical co-creation manual, a documentary film and scientific publications designed to support democratic governance of the twin transition within the EU´s MLG system.
M: MICAD understands climate and digital transitions as deeply interconnected journeys, both requiring strong metropolitan cooperation, reliable data ecosystems and genuinely inclusive participation. Yet each MICAD metropolitan area focuses on just one transition—climate or digital—so it can explore its challenges with depth, clarity and local relevance. What emerges is a powerful insight: these transitions amplify each other. Digital innovation strengthens climate action through smarter monitoring, cleaner mobility and more efficient energy use, while climate ambition guides purposeful investment in technology, data and resilient infrastructure.
To bring this vision to life, MICAD offers metropolitan areas a suite of hands-on tools: shared diagnostic methods that reveal needs and capacities; participatory and co-creation approaches that bring communities into the heart of decision-making; planning templates that turn ideas into actionable strategies; and adaptable solution models inspired by metropolitan peers around the world. Together, they help each metropolitan area advance its chosen transition while staying connected to the wider twin-transition horizon.
R: RECODE MLG investigates how co-creation serves as a mechanism to open up multilevel governance to democratic, inclusive and accountable decision-making. The idea is that by involving policymakers, stakeholders, citizens and volunteers in a collaborative effort across different levels of government, and policy domains, co-creation relies on those affected to identify both problems and solutions related to the twin transition. In RECODE MLG we assess MLG and co-creation at sites where the obstacles, limitations and synergies of twin transition are manifested. These critical sites include city networks, rural and (peri-)urban environments and cross-border regions.
In addition to assessing these sites, RECODE MLG will innovate multilevel governance co-creation by implementing two online and two offline ‘co-creation labs’. These labs build on deliberative connections between stakeholders, citizens and authorities to better understand the arenas, tools, challenges, solutions and endurability of co-creation in MLG systems.
M: From MICAD’s perspective, co-creation and participatory approaches are not just methods, but the heart of governing climate and digital transitions. These shifts redefine how people live, move and connect, so their voices cannot sit at the margins — they must actively shape the path forward. When residents, communities, public institutions and innovators come together, solutions become richer, fairer and more grounded in everyday reality. Participation turns abstract challenges into shared projects, strengthens trust, and helps uncover possibilities that no single actor could imagine alone. It also ensures that those most at risk of being left behind are included from the start, making the transitions more just and resilient. In MICAD, co-creation is therefore a guiding principle: a way to turn complexity into collective intelligence and to build transitions that people can genuinely recognise as their own.
R: Managing both digital and green transitions poses complex multi-level governance challenges, as different territories operate under diverse capacities, priorities, and institutional conditions that shape how the twin transition can be implemented. These challenges include issues of unaccountability, low institutional visibility, limited citizen engagement and technocratic decision-making within the EU’s multilevel governance system.
The challenges and possibilities for twin transition differ between rural and urban areas. Urban areas, with their dense populations, may be strategically positioned for digital transformation but often face sustainability challenges. Meanwhile, rural areas may be tasked with transforming the agricultural sector to become more sustainable using digital solutions. Cross-border regions experience dissimilarities in terms of legal frameworks, regional autonomy, policy competences, administrative procedures and political orientations. These differences can either form barriers for interaction or serve as a source of innovation to achieve a twin transition.
M: MICAD shows that steering climate and digital transitions through multi-level governance is a journey filled with both complexity and opportunity. Metropolitan areas must deal with fragmented responsibilities, shifting political cycles and territories that operate far beyond their formal borders. Metropolitan areas often feel the urgency to act, while regional and national systems move more slowly, creating a natural tension between ambition and authority. Uneven resources and capacities can widen these gaps, making shared progress harder. Yet MICAD also demonstrates that when institutions choose collaboration over isolation, these challenges become catalysts. Aligning visions, sharing data and building trust across levels transforms scattered efforts into a common direction. The transitions advance most powerfully when governance becomes a collective project — when every level recognises that shaping a resilient, inclusive and innovative metropolitan future is something none can achieve alone, but all can achieve together.
Together, RECODE MLG and MICAD show that implementing and managing the twin transition requires more than technical solutions — it demands cooperation, shared governance and genuine participation across all levels. By aligning democratic co-creation with adapted governance strategies, both projects aim to illustrate how metropolitan areas can navigate climate and digital change more inclusively and effectively.
Be part of a transformative movement towards inclusive climate and digital solutions. Together, we can shape sustainable metropolitan futures.
