ABSTRACT
This chapter examines 15 years of experiences accumulated in the 2,000-Watt Society Basel Pilot Region (2,000WS-BPR) in Switzerland. Since 2001, Urban living laboratories (ULL) has united scientists with government and industry practitioners to exploit the Canton Basel-Stadt as a testing arena for emerging built environment, mobility and energy technologies to advance progress towards a "2,000-Watt Society". The set-up phase shed much light on factors that can challenge the legitimacy of ULL projects designed by scientific and municipality actors, and potential strategies to overcome these. The chapter explains noteworthy processes employed at both the local and national level in the first implementation phase to carry out experimentation and foster sustainability innovation in industry, resulting impacts, and driving or hampering factors. Coinciding with the retirement of key protagonists and exhaustion of ETH-funding support, 2,000WS-BPR underwent a major restructuring and redesign at the end of the first decade. This lead to a second and re-imagined four-year phase of implementation for 2013-2016.
