Concordia researchers model a sustainable, solar-powered 15-minute city
The rapid urbanization of the past century has made the car-centric North American city the norm. However, rising greenhouse gas emissions and fuel prices are pushing researchers and planners to look for innovative urban planning alternatives.
A study by Concordia researchers builds on nearly a decade of research on mixed-use, solar-responsive neighbourhoods to propose a new model for urban development. Published in the journal Sustainability, it integrates key strategies to ensuring an environmentally friendly, food-secure future. The model combines the concept of the 15-minute city, renewable energy generation, green transportation and urban agriculture into a singular framework that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions while building an urban agriculture infrastructure and fostering stronger bonds within the community.
“We want to see how we can integrate energy, mobility, land use and social functions to bring daily needs closer to residents so they can reduce the number of fossil-fuel-consuming trips,” says corresponding author Caroline Hachem-Vermette, an associate professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“Our broader goal is to design interconnected neighbourhood clusters that share food, energy and amenities, creating a balanced, adaptive urban network.”
An adaptable model for all neighbourhoods
The Food Production and Transportation Framework, as described in the study, is a scalable system designed to make neighbourhoods more sustainable and livable. It relies on spatial, agricultural, energy and economic variables to measure neighborhood sustainability.
The model builds on the 15-minute city principle, which ensures essential amenities like grocery stores and farmers’ markets are evenly distributed and easily accessible — usually within one kilometre of a residence. Urban agriculture initiatives convert underused rooftops, facades and lot spaces into vegetable gardens. A fleet of electric vehicles, powered by photovoltaic panels embedded in sidewalks, brings the locally grown produce to nearby grocery stores and farmers’ markets.
The framework factors in rooftop, facade and lot areas for cultivation, walking distances between residences and local amenities, crop yields and per capita food demand, along with solar panel efficiency, EV battery capacity and CO₂ reduction rates. Economic elements like energy costs and payback periods guide feasibility.
The researchers also introduced a decision-making metric to quantify how design strategies perform across different neighbourhood configurations. The metric provides planners and policymakers with an easy-to-interpret tool to compare scenarios.
“The goal was always to make this a relatively simple and transparent model, because when you are implementing mixed-use neighbourhoods, community members are important participants,” says lead author and MSc student Faisal Kabir.
Emission and financials savings
The researchers applied their model to London, Ontario’s West 5 neighbourhood. The smart, solar-powered, real-world community acts as a living lab under Concordia’s Volt-Age electrification research program.
They found that dedicating just 13.8 per cent of roof area, 10 per cent of facades and 15 per cent of lot space to urban agriculture could make a neighbourhood completely self-sufficient in leafy greens and other vegetables. Carbon emissions dropped 98 per cent compared to conventional transport-dependent systems.
Furthermore, the solar-powered transport network was a long-term cost-saver: the payback period for savings to cover investment in the network was only 2.8 years, and clean electricity was produced at roughly $0.92 per kilowatt hour.
According to the researchers’ calculations, every 0.19 units of local food production offsets one unit of CO₂ emissions, demonstrating how small, localized initiatives can deliver large environmental benefits.
“Growing food and sharing it with neighbours fosters a real bond. When people start knowing each other, they start helping each other, and that is a basic element of resilience,” says Hachem-Vermette. “Beyond food, beyond carbon, there is a sense of community.”
The study represents one phase of a larger ongoing program led by Hachem-Vermette’s group. Since 2015, the program has explored how energy, mobility, land use and social factors can be integrated at the neighbourhood scale. Future stages will extend the same modeling approach to include workplaces, schools, health and recreational facilities, and regional linkages. The goal is to advance the vision of cities designed as interconnected networks of mixed-use, resource-sharing neighbourhoods.
The three strategies examined in this study contribute to multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 2, 7, 11 and 13) by supporting zero hunger, clean energy, sustainable cities and climate action.
Mahnoor Fatima Sohail contributed research to this study.
Read the cited paper: “Adapting the 15-Minute City to North America: A Framework for Neighbourhood Clusters with Urban Agriculture and Green Mobility.”
