Rickard Persson, Head of Unit Idrottsservice, is in charge of Lund Municipality's various sports facilities. Among them are football pitches at fifteen different locations in the municipality. On eleven of them there are artificial grass pitches, which has the positive effect that there are opportunities to play football outdoors even in the cold months. The downside is that the artificial turf planes are made of different plastics and that it is a problem that the granules are easily dispersed outside the pitch. This is the reason why Lund Municipality is trying to create a more durable and less drought-sensitive natural lawn using biochar. The project is led by the Local Government Office but is carried out in cooperation with the Sports Service at the Cultural and Leisure Administration.

- We use the holes that we make when we aerate the football field and drop biochar and sand into them, said Rickard Persson in an interview in 2020. By going down 20-22 cm, we create conditions for the roots of the grass to dig deeper below the soil surface than the usual 15 to 20 cm. The basic idea of creating a deep root system is to make the grass more durable and drought-resistant. In this way, we may be able to have games on grass for a greater part of the year than is possible now.

Work on biochar started in autumn 2020 at Lineroplanen and the grass subsequently improved, according to Rickard Persson. After that, Idrottsservice started a new project to better evaluate the new properties of the lawn.

- In collaboration with the lunatic companies Sensefarm and Sensative, we will dig down moisture sensors at a depth of 30 cm, said Rickard Persson. A lawn with biochar binds water and with the help of sensors we can assess how much water a plan with biochar needs. We anticipate that this plan won't need water as often as a regular one. If we can save water, it is of course cheaper for us, but it is also a way to save on drinking water and it is important for the whole society.

The 11-man plan is impaired by six sensors, two in each penalty area and two along the centre line. To provide better coverage for sensor communications in the area, Kafringen set up a new LoRa gateway in a mast and all sensor communication took place over Krafring's LoRa network. The sensor project was a one-year project and is supported by IoT Sweden and Vinnova.

More facts

The 11-man plan was the first plan in both Lund Municipality and Sweden to strengthen the grass using biochar. The project is called Rest till Beste and was a Vinnova project led by Lund Municipality and implemented together with fourteen other partners. The work on the football field was done in cooperation with Skånefrö AB.

After the first plan, two seven-man plans had also been attempted in Dalby, where, at a new installation of the plans, the biochar was mixed directly into the topsoil, which was then expected to produce even better results.

The trials on grass pitches were made to create a sustainable alternative to artificial turf pitches. The water and nutrient holding properties of the biochar attract the grass roots and provide a deeper and more branched root system and thus more durable grass surfaces. A lawn where biochar has been added will therefore be significantly more durable than a regular lawn. Due to its porous structure, biochar has a high water-holding ability. The new turf can allow for a more stable season with reduced irrigation needs and reduced costs. If artificial turf pitches are replaced by biochar grass pitches, it is also hoped to create football pitches with a significantly lower carbon footprint.

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Travel to the Best

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Quick facts Smart operation of facilities for sports

Financier: IoT Sweden

Project Time: January 2021 - November 2021

Project Manager: Lund Municipality - Culture and Leisure Administration

Total budget: 257340 SEC

Project partners: Sensative, Sensefarm, Lund Municipality, Ktraftringen

This was the result: The project has delivered a preliminary study that mapped and investigated the possibilities of IoT technology to make the operation of surfaces and premises in sports smarter. Tests were conducted of demand-controlled cleaning of bathhouses and demand-controlled irrigation of football field. The test with demand-driven cleaning of bathhouses was carried out according to plan and resulted in continued cooperation. The test with on-demand irrigation of football pitches has been carried out to the extent that the technical infrastructure was established but due to communication problems with the supplier, the test did not practically start before the football ground closed for the season.

Follow-up projects: Built on knowledge from the SOM project.

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‍Classification in the Future by Lund framework

Layer: ! 3

Zone: Green (2)

What do we mean by zone and layer?

Future by Lund works with a framework to create understanding and provide a basis for strategic decisions regarding the development of the innovation ecosystem where the partnership will be able to review the ecosystem together and conduct strategic dialogues about future development. Working with zones is a way to show what kind of innovation activity and development phase it is, while layers are a way of showing the amount of activities and partner involvement, where you can follow seed investments, project financing and the journey ahead as a result of a project.

Blue, green and yellow zone

To explain the possibilities of the organizational gap between the municipality, business and the university, a model with a blue, a green and a yellow zone is used.

In the blue zone the organization decides everything itself and has control and mandate. Here you control yourself and there is a structure for how you conduct your business. Outside there is Green Zone, located in the gap between organizations. There is a need for cooperation and dialogue with shared mandates. Organizations negotiate and create agreements about who does what, what can be done together, and how it should be done. For example, cities and construction companies often work together to build new areas or concrete projects with common goals and shared tasks and resources. If you go further into it yellow zone the mandate is rather unclear and organisations share challenges and opportunities. Who owns what and who will do what is not clear, presenting greater risks. It is necessary to co-create. In this zone, you need to stimulate, facilitate, test and monitor the outside world in order to create knowledge and understanding. The organizations share the risks surrounding the unknown and the unarticulated. Participant engagement and presence drives the opportunities. Many in Future by Lund's network work precisely with things that are located in the green and yellow zones in areas that you share with others. Activities carried out in the green or yellow zone can eventually become business opportunities and then end up in the blue zone where organizations take home results, use them, build business and scale.

Consequential effects through the layer model

To demonstrate the importance of innovation activities for a system of actors, Future by Lund's associate researcher Emily Wise works with the “layer model” — which is a reporting method used in Vinnova's Vinnprogram and captures dynamics and the “ripple effects” that the initiatives contribute to.

First layer är the support (or base funding) that comes directly to the innovation platform.

Second layer consists of project funding for projects that Future by Lund either leads or participates in.

Third layer is project funding that goes to partners in projects in which Future by Lund does not participate. This is called a spinoff project or follow-on project.

Fourth layer are the qualitative events in the system that are signs that change is taking place in the direction of the sustainable city. It can be new businesses, new products, an increase in the number of employees, new investment streams, new infrastructure and an increase in attention.

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