Local Management for Climate Change Response

The CHAMP Final online conference "European Climate Champions" is over!

2011-12-22T13:31:00.000+02:00

Thank you to all partners and speakers for contributing and to all participants for taking part in this new experience.

You can find all materials and the recorded Live stream here on the website.

We are happy to still receive your feedback!

European Climate Champions Conference: Tell us how you liked it!

2011-12-15T16:15:00.000+02:00

The European Climate Champions is turning to an end. We have had interesting two days with a lot of material, speeches and discussions, and it's surely right to say that the CHAMP project got an ending that it deserved.

For many of us and at least for the organisers this has been the first online event of such a big scale. We have enjoyed this a lot and are sure that online conferences will become more and more common as we get used to them and the technique. For this reason, we'd like to hear your thoughts how it worked out!

What did you think was the best part? What could still be improved?

What was in your opinion the most interesting speech, presentation or video at the European Climate Champions?

We are happy to say that all the material will stay available on the site and it's worth and also the presentations from the live stream will be added to the site soon. We hope you enjoyed the conference!

Photo: Kaj-Michael Lang. "Behind the scenes" at the European Climate Champions

From model projects to mainstream

2011-12-15T16:00:00.004+02:00

European Towns and Cities Campaign, Enviplan, Aalborg Commitments, Covenant of Mayors, Green Capital, CHAMP... many initatives with the aim to motivate and support local authorities on their way towards sustainable development.

Rather often we hear from local authorities that there are too much initiatives and not enough coordination and continuity. This is what the Integrated Management for Sustainability is standing for: Coordination and continuity - not only on local level by supporting local and regional authorities to implement this integrated management approach, but also on European level by establishing the European Partnership.

All these initiatives are useful and they need a management system to be implemented as well as guidance and training programmes. The European Partnership will offer right this:
* A management system which proofs to be logical and practical and at the same time flexible to allow the integration of existing management tools
* Guidelines which are meaningful and profound and at the same time adaptable to the circumsdances of all European countries
* A training structure which combines the European state of the art and national peculiarities and is able to support local and regional authorities by solving their individual challanges
* The European Partnership will further develop a standard for IMS and assure the quality of the management system itself but also of the IMS trainers and training. And it will lobby for mainstreaming IMS and for establishing tangible benefits and advantages for local and regional authorities with an IMS implemented.

The European Partnership has been established with the spirit to include and not to exclude and with the objective to joint forces and use synergies. The CHAMP project team as well as the new IMS National Training Hubs are looking forward to new partners and to work together with initiatives with the same objectives as we have.

A peaceful and relaxing Christmas time and very best wishes for the New Year,

Marion Hammerl and the CHAMP Team

A Nice Package

2011-12-15T15:30:00.002+02:00

CHAMP is offering cities and municipalities an extensive Capacity Development Package to support their capacity development to combat climate change through an integrated management system. Integration of various policies and structures in the administration is needed to respond to climate change. Furthermore, different stakeholders need to be involved in order to implement measures successfully. Have a look at the online Package here!

According to the experience of the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, Finnish cities have found the training based on the Package very useful. The approach is concrete and responds very well to the needs of the cities. Cities mention that they got new ideas and a deeper understanding of issues related to climate change. The Package also tackles important phases of any planning and decision making like political commitment. Hear more about the Finnish experiences on a video here!

IMS Romanian Training Hub

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Romania has more than 3200 local authorities, 9% of them are small and 4 % municipalities with approx. 3.000.000 inhabitants. Local Authorities are facing servere "basic" problems such as water supply and waste water management, energy efficiency and renewable energies, qualification and jobs - specially for young people and hopefully in Green Economy, how to plan and implement "sustainable" infrastructures...

The concept of sustainable development is known in Rumania since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The first management tool proposed to the local communities was the Local Agenda 21. In 2008, the National Strategy for Sustainable Development coordinated by the Ministry of Environment and Forests was approved. In the first "Romanian National Report" from 2008, measures and first results have been published.

Since 2003, a scientific consortium formed by INCE- Romanian Academy, the University Lucian Blaga Sibiu, and CRFCAPL Sibiu, has realized various projects focusing on local communities and sustainable development with the objective to elaborate a model for local authorities.

These strategies are based on the results of sociological investigations and the main objectives are:
- Rational use of natural resources at local level
- Environmental protection
- Protecting and developing cultural heritage
- Sustainable development of economy and increase employment jobs
- Development of sustainable tourism

The methodology is transferable to the majority of local authorities in Rumania. In most of the cases it is still too early to evaluate the implementation and the results obtained. Sibiu and the Association Drumbrava Narciselor are included as positive examples in this brochure.

Fundatia de Perfectionare Profesionala in Administratia Publica uses the results and lessons learned from the strategies in training courses for staff of public administrations and has been able – thanks to ICLEI - to enrich the experience in Rumania with knowledge from other countries.

But there is still a big need for training of politicians and technicians in local authorities. So far, local administrations are not used to a management approach which considers economic, ecological and socio-cultural aspects in an integrated manner. Rumanian communities need more to exchange experiences and to learn from the few but positive examples in the country and also from experiences in other European member states. Furthermore, integrated sustainability management will increase transparency and contribute to a better implementation of programmes and projects.

These are aspects of high importance for European and international funding institutions. IMS will therefore increase the possibilities for Romanian Local Authorities to obtain funding which they need urgently to solve important environmental and social problems. Last not least it is of high importance that Rumanian local authorities become an ethical ideal (Vorbild) regarding sustainable planning and acting and start to live the principles of participatory democracy and the spirit of tolerance. Only then they can request the support of stakeholders and citizens and motivate them to change behavior.

Fundatia de Perfectionare Profesionala in Administratia Publica believes that the Integrated Management System is a valid instrument to enable Rumanian local authorities to face global and local challenges and to contribute to improvement of quality of life for the citizens in our country.

Cooperation is municipal therapy – Notions from the Live Stream session

2011-12-15T14:39:00.001+02:00

Ms. Georgi from EEA reminded us that joint actions and cooperation needs something tangible for basis. The tangible basis can be built through different initiatives that activates cities. Cities are the basic unit of governance, the level in which practical actions often are taken. So, what happens in cities, matters for Europe.

The IUME process is one initiative that is building tangible basis and possibilities for cities to learn from each others. As Mr. AtKisson said in yesterday’s panel discussion “If you cannot measure sustainable development, it will remain just a nice word”

Ms. Mühlmann from ICLEI reminded that integration and cooperation are the key to success and that there is also a key set of indicators in the Capacity Development Package on www.localmanagement.eu which functions as e-platform for the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management.

Ms. Maliszewska from the Sendzimir Foundation emphasized the need for continuous capacity development on two levels: individual and institutional. She also saw that IMS can have a role as being practical tool in developing good governance.

Several comment speeches noted that good governance and sustainability management are challenging goals for cities but the networks have important role as supporters in the process. Mr. Hooli from UBC summarized the experiences from implementing IMS by referring to a civil servant who had stated in IMS workshop that “Cooperation is municipal therapy”.

Photo: Lauri Hooli from UBC.

Get out of the trap! Legalize it!

2011-12-15T14:10:00.001+02:00

Public administration, this old dragon, is a strange animal, that loves to abstain from greater move - which some would also call 'innovation'. There are two popular arguments to do so: 1) We never did it this way. 2) We always have been doing it that way. Consequently resulting in the same stand-still.

Now, we observe that many local administrators, personally and because of deeper insight and understanding, would like to innovate their work-place and procedures by introducing instruments like IMS. And not at least during the CHAMP e-conference 'Climate Champions', we could observe a general agreement of many diffeent actors in Europe that IMS is perhaps the most promising solution for a sustainability oriented public management for European cities, towns and regions, independent from geographical location or size. But will the EU's integrated approach and local integrated management 'fly' just by being the best-in-class instrument for managing local sustainability and climate change response? Will local governments in Europe rearrange their public management procedures towards an 'integrated approach' following the IMS example just by voluntary move? The European EMAS does so, but the main argument is 'competition', which is a valid argument for private organisations, businesses, of course. But for public administration that is used to deal with and inside a clear legal framework? We are IMS enthusiastics - and we have our doubts. The doubt lives on the fact that IMS is simply not required. There is a trap that we observe. It is the 'waiting for the other-trap'.

Local administrators would like to change, but don't get mandate by their politicians and CEO's. Politicians and CEO's refer to missing legal requirements and reject any voluntary spending for a transition (independent from any future gains). National governments are not really interested in developing a legal obligation (which would actually mean to change local constitution), as they expect municipal associations to oppose due to the 'old dragon phenomenon'. They refer to other European countries that do have no such obligation in their legislation. Who could then move? The European Commission. But: In 2005, the European Commission presented their idea of an obligation for integrated environmental plans for the, then, 460 European cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Immediately, Member states and National local government associations rejected this idea. It was, however, not for the contents, but for the principle. Member states saw problems with the subsidiarity principles, municipal associations, by default, opposed any new instrument - in their understand equal to: burden - obligatory to local governments. The old dragon waves ...

Meanwhile, we hear some administrators say: the city networks should lobby a legal requirement? Well, we do so for quite long time, actually. But with the 'waiting for the other-trap', there is no entry point, no example, and lobbying from the outside only. We are committed to carry IMS forward: by means of the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management, dissemination, advocacy work. But this will help little, if not public administrations themselves move and push their politicians and Councils, Councils move and push their national associations, national associations move and push their national governments, and the national governments take a different view on cooperating with the European Commission for a new mode of multi-level integrated sustainability governance.

Holger Robrecht

Tailor-made IMS approaches for German cities

2011-12-15T13:18:00.006+02:00

In Germany, local constitution is a matter of the 16 federal states. This is why the implementation of local sustainability is highly connected with the federal state level. Therefore the German CHAMP Partners – ICLEI and the Lake Constance Foundation – anchored action not only at national but also at Federal State level. These Federal States particularly support training and coaching to individual cities, which led to an adapted CHAMP-training approach in Germany.

One good example for this successful cooperation is the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate with the city of Speyer. During the CHAMP project Speyer has started its integrated sustainability management system. Actually they are elaborating the indicator set for their Baseline Review. There is a ppt available about the local development of Speyer in the cities solution section.

Another German example using IMS fighting Climate Change is the City of Nordhausen in Thuringa. Stakeholder Integration and public participation are crucial for the local responsibles. Therefore they organised in cooperation with ICLEI, two stakeholder fora and a public information event. Further information you get here.

An interesting source for further information on local sustainability in German is the webportal nachhaltigkeitkommunal.eu.

Do you know any other good examples of German cities being active fighting climate change and fostering a sustainable future?

Implementing sustainable development in Polish cities

2011-12-15T12:44:00.002+02:00

The polish cities need urgently a shift in the attitude towards climate change, both in terms of adaptation and mitigation actions, states Karolina Maliszewska, Board member of Sendzimir Foundation- I personally think that IMS is a real innovative process that the polish cities should take into account for becoming more sustainable.

Ms. Maliszewska also recognizes that implementing sustainable development is a very important thing but at the same time is a very complex issue that should be dealt with the right tools. That's why the Sendzimir Foundation has decided to be part of the CHAMP European Partnership: cities gain support and a stimulus from being part of a network.

The Capacity Development Package set up in CHAMP may address perfectly the complexity of the topic: its practicality is a support for Polish cities and bring strong benefits.

IMS - Voluntary Instrument or obligatory for all local authorities?

2011-12-15T12:38:00.003+02:00

During the elaboration of the European Thematic Strategy for Urban Environment, it was discussed to make environmental management obligatory for all cities with more than 100.000 inhabitants. Unfortunatley this proposal was not successful because of the oposition of several member states and municipality federations.
Why an environmental management system or - even more appropieate - a sustainability management system should not be obligatory for all local and regional authorities, as well as sound financial management is legally requested?
Since many years, environmental organisations like ours are observing, that voluntary instruments (doesn´t matter if for public bodies or companies) do not have the expected effects. By now, only a very limited number of organisations is engaged and motivated to develop truly towards sustainable development. And additional to their efforts - which are very much appreciated - they need to pay for certifications which underline that they are acting in a responsible way.

And the other 90 % of public bodies and companies which are just doing the legally requested - or often even not that? Why they do not need to pay the costs for the environmental and social impacts they produce because of short term benefit orientation?

This is an "illegal competition" - said Jochen Seitz, CEO of PUMA company. PUMA recently published as first company an Ecological Profit and Loss Account - internalizing the costs for use of water, land use, waste and CO² emissions.
Only in 2010, the costs for these environmental aspects was more than 120 million euros - nearby 50% of the benefits of the company. Jochen Seitz underlines that all companies should be legally obliged to publish a Environmental Profit and Loss Account. First it would allow transparancy and it would be the basis for sound regulation measures such as taxes for the overuse of natural resources.

This would be an important step to favor responsible companies - as well as public administrations - and to punish all those which are benefitting now from unsustainable and unresponsible behaviour.
Best, Marion Hammerl

The challenge of climate change can only be solved with cooperation

2011-12-15T12:00:00.001+02:00

In her interview, Birgit Georgi from the European Environment Agency emphasized the role of cities in achieving the goals of the EU 2020 strategy. However, she also stated that climate change is a problem we cannot solve on one level of government. The local level neither the European level can not solve this challenge alone but all levels of government are needed.

After this, Pamela Mühlmann from ICLEI introduced the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management, which is working to mainstream integrated management to build more sustainable cities and regions. The European Partnership aims to form a bridge between European policies and local authorities. It focuses in increasing the capacities of local authorities

At the moment the European Partnership is still an open network, so if your organisation is interested, please contact us! You can find more information on the in the Introducing the European Partnership section.

EU LIFE Programme

2011-12-15T11:53:00.004+02:00

Are you involved in a LIFE-project?
CHAMP and Integrated Management for Sustainable Development is supported by the European Commission within the LIFE-Programme.

Of course, there is potential for improvement regarding the management of the LIFE-Programme and the supported projects as well as other EU programmes. But so far, LIFE is the only financial instrument to support nature and environmental projects in the European Union.

Yes - also other programmes are supporting increasingly sustainability projects, but LIFE allows the implementation of model initiatives and - of special importance - to really look for the "European Added Value".

The current LIFE Programme will end by Dec. 2013 and the continuation of LIFE is still not sure! DG Environment is fighting for the continuation of LIFE and we all should support this.

Yesterday, the European commission published the proposal for the new LIFE 2014 - 2020:
A LIFE Programme for the Environment and Climate Action with a budget of3,2 billion Euro

Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: "The LIFE Programme is key to
designing better environmental policy. It is available to support all those people and
organisations who are working to make sure that legislation results in better
outcomes for the environment in Europe. We are reforming the programme to
deliver greater impact by mobilising support in an integrated way from other funding
sources."

Why participate in European projects, such as CHAMP?

2011-12-15T11:29:00.001+02:00

Why is cooperation needed? Because working with other European cities is a big stimulus, it provides the possibility to get in touch with different and several experiences brings certainly new ways of thinking and acting - this is what Daniela Luise, the new Italian Local Agenda 21 Association Director, reckons.

CHAMP gathers many European networks working on sustainability and IMS, and very experienced ones as well, and they can support cities providing best practices and trainings.

In this sense, cooperation at international level between networks and therefore their cities is key for a sustainable growth in our countries: this is also a key issue that is being discussed now in the second day of the CHAMP online conference. Please take a look at the live conference on line and don't hesitate to ask questions, the speakers are there to give you ideas and to answer your questions!

You can find more information in the section European Cooperation.

Live stream today at 11-13 (CET+1)

2011-12-15T10:59:00.000+02:00

Our second live stream session will start just in a minute. You are welcome to follow us there and participate through chat or posting your comments to the speakers on the comments section of this post!

Today our topic is European cooperation for mainstreaming the integrated approach to fight climate change and you can find the detailed programme under the Live Stream site.

Support for Assessment for Eastern European Countries

2011-12-15T10:57:00.008+02:00

Within the CHAMP-Project, Lake Constance Foundation is responsible for the dissemination of the Integrated Management System approach in Eastern European countries.
We are doing this in intense cooperation with Lake Balaton Development Coordination Agency - our CHAMP partner in Hungary.

Besides contacting all Environmental Ministries, competent bodies and other relevant organisations in Central and Eastern European countries, we developed more intense contacts with Sendzimir Foundation in Poland and Fundatia de Perfectionare Profesionala in Administratia Publica in Romania. Lake Constance Foundation supports these future "IMS National Hubs" by the realization of information workshops and first trainings for local authorities and the adaptation and translation of basic training material.

Furthermore, Lake Constance Foundation supports also REC (Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe) in the training of 25 municipalities from Balkan region towards sustainable development.

All these activities are financial supported by the German Environmental Ministry and the German Federal Environmental Agency within the Programme to support the Assessment for Eastern European Countries and the LIFE Programme of the European Commission.

Marion Hammerl, Lake Constance Foundation

Biodiversitätscheck

Trainings of Integrated Sustainability Management in Hungary

2011-12-15T10:30:00.000+02:00

CHAMP encourages and supports local authorities to implement IMS (Integrated Management System) for sustainability in response to climate change effects. An extensive 5 steps training was carried out in four countries during the project period. The training method focused on how to respond more efficiently to climate change, and awareness raising about IMS. Integrated Management System is an answer to adapt to the climate change. How the CHAMP project could help for example Local Government of Fonyód in reaching the environmental objectives?

"By learning, we learnt what kind of targets can be set and how to reach these targets. We know that targets must be continuohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifusly developed; it is not enough that we set the targets and only meet them; we have to try annually or bi-annually to review and further develop them. And maybe the main learning is that we can not stop, persistently we have to develop we have to set new targets and meet them. We would like to update our environmental management plan annually – biannually, and also that the members of the local council support us to implement new and new environmental programs."

The end of the training the participants received a certification within the Final Award Ceremony. The representatives of Fonyód can be seen on the picture.
If you would like to become a Climate Champion, please click to the project website or follow the on-line conference.
You can find out more about the Hungarian trainings in the section Reflecting the CHAMP trainings.

The importance of cooperation

2011-12-15T10:00:00.005+02:00

'Good ideas walk with human legs', this is what Emanuele Burgin, President of the Italian Local Agenda 21 Association, thinks of the importance of cooperation between different municipal departments. The Integrated Management System in a municipality gives the opportunity to have an internal 'think-tank', that could successfully set up and implement efficient processes, through a continuous share of updated information.
An added value is the opportunity coming from CHAMP on an european partnership of cities, with training hubs becoming points of reference for training on IMS, providing tools that would enable cities to stand up alone and to use the most of their internal capacities.

Watch the video of Emanuele Burgin at the section Why is European Cooperation needed?

Transnational networks helping cities in climate change response

2011-12-15T09:30:00.001+02:00

The second key note paper of the European Climate Champions conference is written by Dr. Kristine Kern, a researcher on environmental policy issues. In her paper, Dr. Kern writes: When cities develop their own initiatives and try to influence international decisions directly, they change from being policy-takers to policy-makers.

It's true that transnational city networks such as ICLEI, UBC, Energy Cities and Climate Alliance etc. working with climate issues can be of great help to their member cities. They can either use direct lobbying, financial incentives or direct consultation and collaborative efforts in an international setting.

In the CHAMP training series we have seen that peer support and capacity building offered by these networks is really of great value to the cities. What ways do you think this kind of city networks can help cities?

Read the keynote paper by Kristine Kern here and feel free to discuss it in the comment section of this post!

Welcome to the 2nd day of European Climate Champions!

2011-12-15T09:00:00.002+02:00

Today´s main topic is "European Cooperation for mainstreaming the integrated approach to fight climate change"!

Check out the content on that topic at the "European cooperation" pages

As yesterday you are able to comment and dicuss on the blog or get in touch with us straight.

The Live stream is on air from 11.00-13.00 (CET+1) and you are very welcome to ask questions in the chat.

We hope you enjoy today!

The Covenant of Mayors initiative: a good example from the Province of Modena

2011-12-14T16:30:00.006+02:00

In Italy it is usually said that 'L'unione fa la forza' ('union brings strenght'), this might be the idea behind the Club for the Covenant of Mayors set up by the Province of Modena: a group of cities coming from the provincial area that have signed the EC Covenant of Mayors and that are willing to go forward together towards the fulfillment of the CoM commitments.

The Club is supported and managed by the Province of Modena, a CoM coordinator, with the technical support of the Agency for Energy and Sustainable Development in Modena.
They get together to discuss issues linked to energy and climate change, they work together sharing ideas and solutions, they travel to see european successfull and sustainable cities: don't you think that this could be easily replicated? We think so!

See here the interview from Stefano Vaccari from the Province of Modena.

Trees instead of presents

2011-12-14T16:30:00.005+02:00

When you organise an online conference with the background of being climate-friendly and avoiding emissions, it also requires some new ideas when it comes to speaker present.

So when we came to that point, we almost went into the trap to just give a small present like always: something typical Finnish, design, small handicrafted items, wine, flowers....

There is nothing at all wrong with these, but isn´t there anything else? Something that makes more sense? Something that is also easy to carry for the speakers and nothing they would throw away...because they didn´t like the wine or have already 10 ties or scarfs?!

Luckily there are several initiatives and organisations who actually offer just this: another kind of spaeker present - trees !

For our speakers and panelists during the conference, we donated 50 trees to be planted in Nicaragua.

With this we contribute to the reforestation in Nicaragua and through this help to protect the climate.

The organisation who leads the project we donated the trees for and who facilitates th ewhole donation process is PrimaKLima weltweit

Perhaps it is an idea also for yout future events? We will definitely use this way to give presents in a climate-friednly way in the future as well!

You'll never walk alone to sustainability

2011-12-14T16:00:00.001+02:00

Why aren't cities moving more radically and more rapidly towards sustainability? Why aren't more cities resilient? Why do things take so long time to improve? Many 'sustainability activitists' are wondering, sometimes suffering from this phenomenon, sometimes hoping for the better. Not the only one, but still one response to this is: we have not yet reached sufficient momentum. One way to multiply impacts is cooperation.

Alan AtKisson, in his presentation at Climate Champions 2012 in Turku, reinforced the importance of both, individuals that act as change agents for sustainable development as well as alliances and networks that help to energize their activities and multiply their effects. 'You'll never walk alone' is important for both: the person or organisation that feels a movement of like-minded around providing feed-back, confirmation, and inspiration, and the movement that could not 'move' or be 'moving' without the individuals that carry the idea by personal 'investment' of time, creativity, power.

When starting CHAMP - Local Response to Climate Change, we were conscious about the need to not just add another project to the list, not just another guide to the shelf, not just another training package to the portfolio. Too often we had experienced a good idea or programme vanishing with the end of a funded project. Encouraged by cities that took part in Managing Urban Europe-25, we dared to think of a European platform for integrated management. This platform was not supposed to be an organisation or network competing with the existing - with 4 of them actually included in the project team. The idea was rather to establish a platform or partnership that would continue after the project's lifetime with all involved contributing to its maintenance. Moreover, this partnership should allow for reaching out in all 27 Member States of the European Union, offering training capacities in-country, networking opportunities and - following the principle of continuous improvement - establish a feed-back and learning process to improve training material.

Implementing this idea, the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management was launched at the occasion of the Bonn Resilient Cities 2011 conference. The Partnership establishes a structure of national training hubs. These hubs connect trainers and advisors of local governments that want to implement IMS. They offer training opportunities and advocate integrated management in their countries. At the same time, the training hubs commit themselves to be part of a European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management. By now, seven training hubs have been established. Others announced their interest.

The European partnership supports the training hubs by providing training material, opportunities to exchange and furthering standards for integrated sustainability management. As said, you'll never walk alone! Join the partnership, join the movement!

http://www.climatechampions.eu/index.php/cfc:partner

IMS - Taylor made approach

2011-12-14T15:40:00.000+02:00

Dear Participants,

People engaged in environmental protection like me very often are not very pacient and not very friend of the "small step by step approach".
But during the years I learned, that people need to be "picked up from where they currently are" - especially if the task is to work on challanges related to climate change.

The Integrated Management System is not a tool for punctually problems - but a tool to work in a structured and efficient way on long term objectives. It is impossible to achieve sustainable development in one step and therefore the concept of IMS is based on a modular approach.

The "Plan-do-act-check" Management Cycle is known since decades and still valid. The environmental management systems EMAS and ISO 14001 are based on this cycle and IMS too.
Therefore, EMAS or ISO 14001 are good basis to extend them towards a sustainability management system: extention to the whole urban area, inclusion of all relevant stakeholders and inclusion of all aspects of sustainability.
Anyway, if we are discussing environmental aspects, allways social and economical implications are considered as well.
EMAS is motivating explicitly the certified administrations to develop the EMS further - even if only the environmental part of the management system will be certified by an auditor!

Apart from the scope related to content and some other wording such as Baseline Review instead of Environmental Report, there is one important difference between EMS and IMS. It is the request of political committment on highest level and in all relevant steps of the management process.
EMAS requests that the " head of unit" is responsible and needs to sign the Environmental Declaration. In case of IMS for local and regional authorities, the "Council" is the head of unit and highest responsible on political level. Therefore is is crucial to involve the Council in all steps of the management system and to request the political support in form of approval of all relevant decisions and findings within IMS.

Political committment starts with the council decision to implement the IMS, follows by approval of the Strategic Programme and includes the regognition of the monitoring results and the political willingness to take the necessary correction actions - even if they are not popular.

The CHAMP project team and the communities involved in the implementation of IMS want to motivate local and regional governments to start the integrated management approach - step by step and in a modular approach!

The Capacity Bulding Package and the increasing practical experience behind is ready to support you!

Best wishes, Marion Hammerl - Lake Constance Foundation

Integrated management for Rumanian Local Authorities

2011-12-14T15:35:00.000+02:00

Dear Participants:

last week I was invited by Fundatia de Perfectionare Profesionala in Administratia Publica, an organisation with long term expertise regarding capacity building of local authorities. Last week, the second traing on Integrated Managementfor Sustainability took place and representative of 8 rumanian and 3 moldavian municipalities participated.

Climate change was not the main focus of the workshop. The local authorities want to know more about IMS as an instrument to improve basic aspects such as management of water resources including waste water treatment, increase renewable energy, take the right decisions for sustainable infrastructures or to increase jobs - specially within the "green economy" and for young people.

But of course, all these aspects are related to and influenced by climate change.

We discussed (not easy, because we needed translation) intensely that IMS requieres a change of thinking in the administration - a challange specially in those new EU member states where there is no tradition to follow all steps of a management cycle and to look for a participatory approach.

The Rumanian and Moldavian local authorities expect by implementing an environmental or sustainability management system also better access to financial support from the European Commission and other funding institution. And yes, a well structured and transparent management system will underline the profesionality of the local authority and increase trust. Funding institutions can be much more confident, that local authorities with proper management will have less conflicts and will achieve the agreed objectives!

Fundatia de Perfectionare will continue to offer training on IMS as the National Rumanian Training Hub. The Rumanian Environmental Ministry is supporting these approach and Lake Constance Foundation contributes with background material and experiences.

The German Environmental Ministry and German Environmental Agency support the dissemination and implementation of IMS in Eastern European Countries by co-financing training, translation of guidance etc.

Best wishes, Marion

Should we trust in Durban results?

2011-12-14T15:30:00.006+02:00

Please imagine:

Delegations of 194 countries would have come to Durban ready to implement an Integrated Management System for Climate Protection for our planet:
The first step = a sound Baseline Review for the whole planet and all ecological, social and economical aspects related to climate change has been realized.
Scientific Experts all over the world agree on the targets which need to be achieved by 2020 in order to have a minimum chance to avoid a global warming over 2 degrees.
A risk analysis has been done regarding what the consequences if temperature arises about 3,5 degrees - scenario which starts to be discussed now.

And the world´s political decision makers on highest level recognize the findings of the baseline report and use them to set the right priorities.

Instead of last minute negotiations and a "Pact with legal force" by 2015, a sound "Strategic Climate Programme" with concrete Action Plans would have been approved with measurable targets, clear responsibilities and time tables and allocated resources. Partnerships have been putted in place, because these inmense challanges can not be achieved by the governments only!

A Strategic Programme with the requiered political committment - that means approved by the UN and all 194 countries. Monitoring sturctures and procedures have been defined - neutral and trasparent - and with the compromise not to ignore monitoring results and to take correction actions if needed.

An appropiate organisational set up was established to assure the efficient functioning of the integrated climate management system and to set up the procedures and rules for stakeholder involvement.

Communication and involvement are considered as a priority in all stages of the elaboration and implementation of Climate Management - and citizens and stakeholders involved consider themselves well informed in order to be able to contribute actively and appropiatly to the tremendous objective.

Unfortunatly it seems that political leaders of many countries never heard about the integrated management approach for sustainable development. Steps agreed are too weak and too slow when climate change has become a rather urgent issue!

We urge political decision makers from national, regional and local governments to learn from the CHAMP Capacity Building Package and the take the guidance and experiences seriously!
We invite them to come to our IMS Training Courses! We recommend to contact the local and regional authorities participating in Managing Urban Europe and CHAMP and implementing integrated management system.

They can tell you, that it is not an easy task, that is requieres political will and continous support of political decision makers in all steps of the management process. But it is the only way to come to positive results.

Climate mitigation and adaptation requieres a structured and continious way. The global objectives can only be achieved on local level - therefore it is so important to support local and regional authorities which are taking these challanges seriously and are working towards solutions in a structured and continuos way.

At the same time, European and national political decision makers need to change the political framework in order to make IMS mainstream: IMS as a minimum requirement for all kind of financial support, Strategic Programmes and sound monitoring on local, regional and national level ... these are the steps which need to be taken.

No more time to loose!
Best wishes - Marion Hammerl, Lake Constance Foundation

CHAMP in Italy: successful trainings on IMS!

2011-12-14T15:30:00.004+02:00

The CHAMP project has been very successful in Italy in training local authorities on the use of Integrated Management Systems to fight climate change: 11 local authorities took part in the 5 training workshops held in Italy during the project and most of them successfully applied an integrated approach in defining and implementing their climate strategy.

See for example the case of the City of Florence: thanks to a strong political commitment and to an effective interdepartmental workgroup, they succeeded in defining and starting to implement their Sustainable Energy Action Plan within one year from the signature of the Covenant of Mayors (for more info visit their website: http://www.comune.fi.it/opencms/export/sites/retecivica/amm/piani_e_progetti/patto_sindaci.htm)

Listen to the comments on the CHAMP trainings by Alessandro Zan, Deputy Mayor for Environment and International Cooperation in the city of Padova: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmjUAFN5DHs&feature=player_embedded.

Are you interested in participating to trainings on IMS?

Reflections on green economy - panel discussion

2011-12-14T15:16:00.007+02:00

What do you think about the relation between economy growth and the use of energy? Do you think there is a problem about our rate of consumption? ‘Go green’ is ok but governments never talk about change in consumption...

You talked about green economy. But from your experiences, do you see a real political commitment from local and national governments? Is there a change in thinking green?

These were questions raised in the chat of the panel discussion “Keeping up the local climate work in times of crisis”. What kind of crisis are we talking about? Economic crisis is apparent, but as Holger Robrecht pointed out we are actually experiencing a triple crisis: economic crisis is very much related and caused by the environmental crisis, and neither of these can be solved without addressing also people’s wellbeing and social justice.

The example from the City of Malmö was seen as an inspiration (see the keynote paper by the Mayor of Malmö here): the City of Malmö has gone through a deep structural crisis but has based its future strongly on principles of sustainable development and has found a totally new greener way of growth.

Even though the concept of green economy needs definition, the panel could agree on that the new green technology has an important role to play in the transition and can be seen as an opportunity to local government.

Integrated management system IMS was seen not as a tool for paperwork but more as a way of thinking and mobilizing local resources and actors. We don’t need only good planning but also evaluation of where we are and how are we reaching our goals regarding different aspects of sustainability.

Solutions from the most Northern CHAMP city

2011-12-14T14:45:00.000+02:00

Oulu is a lively centre in Northern Finland an has some 140 000. Being a CHAMP pilot city, it is also presented in the European Climate Champions conference.

You will find two presentations about Oulu in the Solutions from CHAMP cities section, telling more about the implementation of the City Climate Change Programme and expriences from CHAMP trainings.

The implementation of the City Climate Change Programme in Oulu is organised with the help of a cross administrative development programme. The aim is to ensure the strategic link between the city strategy and the various projects. This link is missing in many cities and is increasingly needed, as in many cities the volume of development using projects is growing. Do you feel the Oulu approach in implementing a local climate strategy can be successful?

Picture: Winter cyclists in Oulu / City of Oulu

Hungarian champions

2011-12-14T14:30:00.000+02:00

The CHAMP project supported and trained 11 cities, 2 companies and 1 university student in Hungary in responding to climate change effects through implementing integrated management systems and improvement of effective planning. We thought that an integrated management system for local sustainability can integrate sustainability aspects into their management
practices, indentify resources and solution for responding to climate change related problems and challenges.

The main task of local governments is to provide good quality of life for citizens. However, human are facing an increasing number of global threats and problems, such as the impacts of climate change. What kind of preventive measures are planned by the local governments to be prepared for the impacts of climate change? What are the added values of the CHAMP project for the cities to reach the environmental targets?

If you are interested to know more about the Hungarian practices click to the following link.

Panel discussion on Green Economy

2011-12-14T13:24:00.004+02:00

Green Ecomony: how can it be integrated within the municipality? This is the question Maija Hakanen, from the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, posed to the panel of the CHAMP final conference.

All panel speakers have agreed that green economy and green growth are now in national governments' agenda but using the word growth may be not the right one. Mr Risto Veivo from Turku believes that the term is used sometimes too much in general terms not allowing to clearly understand how to be green.

A Green economy is the only way to get out of this crises, there is no other way and this is also a way to get connected to the private world, it is the means to go towards a sustainable development, states Holger Robrecht from ICLEI Europe.

What is your idea on that? Is 'greening' the solution, especially for local authorities?

Sustainable development budgeting in Turku

2011-12-14T12:22:00.004+02:00

Building the link between the resources and the implementation of sustainable development is an important objective in the City of Turku, Finland.

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland with a population of 177 000. For the year 2011, Turku has been designated to be the European Capital of Culture.

Risto Veivo presented the case of Turku in the live stream and you can read more on the process of sustainable development budgeting in the Solutions from CHAMP cities section.

Now interactive LIVE STREAMING Session on tailor made solution for cities

2011-12-14T10:49:00.004+02:00

The Live streaming session will start off with presentations by CHAMP cities sharing their local development experiences during the project. As a special guest, we are happy to welcome Alan AtKisson, one of the pioneers in sustainability consulting, who will introduce us to the ISIS Method. Finally a moderated panel discussion with international experts will take place.

During the live stream, you will have the possibility to discuss with the experts by posting your questions on the chat. The chat will also be open after the session, so if your question couldn’t be answered during the live stream, it will certainly be answered afterwards.

Isn’t it wonderful to participate in such a high-ranking expert talk from everywhere in the world, without moving a single bit?

Malmö showing the way - is this the momentum for all cities to take the lead?

2011-12-14T10:00:00.001+02:00

In his keynote paper the Chair of the ENVE Commission in the Committee of the Regions, Mayor of Malmö City, Mr. Ilmar Reepalu is highlighting the central role of local governments in local action for global change.

At these days, when the intergovernmental processes like COP15 and the Durban negotiations are not supporting strong enough the necessary steps towards sustainable development, the point that Mr. Reepalu makes is more true than ever before. This means that the heavy duty and responsibility of building a sustainable world is left on the shoulders of the smallest public management units, the cities.

When the right things cannot be agreed on global level, we must make them happen on local level. It is the time for cities and regions to act and take the lead towards integrated sustainability management.

In his keynote paper, Mr. Reepalu illustrates what integrated approach can mean in practice. But Malmö is only one out of thousands of European cities where the change can be made. We need to share the good practices, we must build our capacities together to learn new ways of planning and living and we must start the change from our selves to create sustainable European cities for future generations. And we must do it today, starting from the European Climate Champions conference.

Picture: Malmö on Christmas time (©Malmö Stad / Martin Lindeborg)

And who are you?

2011-12-14T09:30:00.003+02:00

And of course we would like to know: who are you? Out there on your desks or wherever you are...
* Are you a representative of a local or regional authority?
* A researcher or student?
* Working in a city network or other climate/sustainability related organisation?
* Or just interested in the topic?

We welcome you all to take part in those two days of conference and would be very happy if you leave a short comment about yourself and perhaps how you got to know about this! Enjoy the conference and if you have any questions or remarks, just comment on the blog or send us a message via the Get in touch link.

European Climate Champions Conference starts!

2011-12-14T08:55:00.001+02:00

Welcome to our online conference - European Climate Champions starts now!

It's great to have you here! We hope that you enjoy the content by browsing through the pages, follow these posts on the main page and participate in the discussion by using the commenting option.

The conference offers three themes:
* City solutions
* Capacity building
* European Cooperation
On each section, you will find videos, presentations and other material that will be available throughout the conference.

On both days, we will also stream live speeches, presentations and discussions that you can follow by clicking the live stream window on the upper right corner of the page at 11 (CET+1). During the live stream, you are also very welcome to ask questions from the speakers and comment the discussions through the chat.

Welcome!

The way ahead for Siena

2011-12-14T01:23:00.000+02:00

Which is the way ahead for Siena? During the Final Champ Conference, Paolo Casprini, the Director for the Environmental Area for the Province of Siehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifna, has been very clear on that: after all the technical work and the set up of the Provincial Energy Plan, it is necessary now to communicate and to get in touch with local stakeholders and citizens with the aim to raise awareness on what it has been done in the provincial area for climate change.
The Province of Siena is currently working in its new project 'Siena Carbon Free 2015', that foresees many actions to be implemented: incentives for PV, a massive use of renewable sources, production of energy from waste and geothermal energy, amongst all the initiatives. You can read more about Siena's process towards carbon neutrality in the Solutions from CHAMP cities section.

The Award 'Siena Carbon free' is a way to get in touch with local stakeholders: an award for ideas and projects that implement energy efficiency and use fo RES, made by local public bodies, citizens and local enterprises. Best practices on the way! Do you have your proposal?

The two medieval Cities on Show

2011-12-13T16:28:00.009+02:00

On Wednesday LIVE stream we are going to hear and discuss about how the Integrated Management System has been implemented in cities and how various solutions for climate change response have developed out of the City initiatives. We will hear presentations from two European medieval cities, Turku and Siena, touching upon topics such as challenges in local climate work and concrete actions of Sustainable Development Budgeting.

Risto Veivo, Adviser to the Deputy Mayor, Environmental Affairs and Chair of Climate and Environment Coordination Group at the City of Turku, Finland. During his career, Risto has been a member of several European and Baltic Sea regional expert working groups on sustainable development and environment. He has been instrumental in the development and coordination of international sustainable development programs and projects.

The second city representative is Paolo Casprini, Director of the Environmental Policies area, from the Province of Siena in Italy. Paolo has followed for the Province of Siena several European co-funded projects on Integrated Management System and Energy. He is currently the project coordinator for the Project “Siena Carbon Free 2015” actived by Siena Province.

The LIVE steam with the city solutions will be at 11.25 (CET+1) on Wednesday 14th of December.

Picture by: City of Turku/ Esko Keski-Oja

Who takes the lead after Durban?

2011-12-13T13:50:00.003+02:00

Feelings after the Durban Climate Summit are controversial. The national authorities are convinced about the success: “historical achievements”, “the planet is saved”. On the other side are the NGO’s that talk about “cruel results” and “terribly low level of ambition”.

Basically the results can be seen positive as it was decided that there will be an agreement which will limit the emissions of all countries. It is to be signed by 2015 and come legally into force by 2020.

But looking at this from the European perspective in which the goal has been to reduce the emissions significantly by the year 2020 this agreement seems to come awfully late. Did not we have a hurry to react?!

Anyhow, the intergovernmental negotiations show that the sustainable change will come. Someday. Perhaps.

Meanwhile, the Local Governments have signed a Durban Adaptation Charter, which draws the line for cities to take the lead. The discussion fromn the perspective of local governments continues in the live stream session on Wednesday 11-13:30 (CET+1).

The Polish Training Hub: A fresh perspective to the European Cooperation

2011-12-12T16:41:00.009+02:00

We are glad to invite Karolina Maliszewska to present the Polish perspective to the European cooperation for mainstreaming the integrated approach to fight climate change, at the Live stream on Thursday 15th December. Karolina acts as Vice president of the Sendzimir Foundation –one of the leading sustainability organizations in Poland.

The Sendzimir Foundation is one of the newer partner of the CHAMP consortium, involved as the Polish Training Hub in the most recent phase of developing a European Cooperation for mainstreaming the integrated approach to fight climate change.

In her work, Karolina specializes in the social aspect of sustainability, corporate responsibility, sustainability management systems, social dialogue and environmental conflict resolution. She has more than 10 years of experience in training within the field of sustainability in Poland as well as facilitating participatory processes of strategic planning in local communities, supporting local authorities in sustainable development implementation.

Karolina will speak in the LIVE Stream on Thursday 15th of December at 11.40-12.10 (CET +1).

The European Environment Agency's perspective to local climate change response

2011-12-12T11:27:00.013+02:00

The European Environment Agency (EEA) is working to provide information and assessments as the basis for decision- and policy-making. The EEA is focusing on preparing a ground for coherent action and joint response to tackle urban issues, such as climate change.

We have the pleasure of having Birgit Georgi from the EEA to speak at the European Climate Champions conference!

Birgit has lead the work on urban issues in the EEA for the last 5 years, but for the last year she's been focusing specifically on climate change adaptation on local level. In the conference, she will speak about the role of the cities in European policy and reflect the Europe 2020 strategy and the climate challenges for municipalities. We will also hear about the EEA-driven process towards an Integrated Urban Monitoring in Europe (IUME).

Birgit will speak in the live stream on Thursday, the 15th of December at 11.00-13.00 (CET+1).

Alan AtKisson - the change agent

2011-12-09T16:22:00.001+02:00

We are very happy to welcome Alan AtKisson to our conference and the live stream on wednesday Dec 14th!

Alan has been working with sustainability issues for over 20 years and is one of the pioneers in sustainability consulting. In 1992 he established the AtKisson Group, a global network of sustainability consultants, trainers and communicators all working towards a sustainable development of the world.

He is busy as inspirational speaker, trainer and communicator at conferences, workshops and in media. We are looking forward to hearing about his method and approach for integrated planning for climate change and hope for good discussions in the panel and with you, the participants.

Pose your questions and remarks to Alan during the Live stream in the chat (will be provided with the live streaming) or also here in the blog.

Alan will speak on Wednesday Dec 14th between 11-13.30h (CET+1)! Welcome!

Get introduced to the speakers!

2011-12-02T16:15:00.003+02:00

The CHAMP partners are currently busy with finalising material, collecting presentations and videos as well as doing technical fixes to the website - all to be well prepared and ready for the online conference "European Climate Champions" on 14.-15.12.2011!

For all of us, this is a new and exciting challenge and we put all our efforts in creating an interesting and interactive happening for all participants.

We have now the final schedule for the live stream sessions, have a look!

From next week on, we will introduce you to our speakers a bit more on this blog - who are they and what do they work with? And why did we invite them to speak?

Welcome back to find out from Monday on!

European Climate Champions website launched!

2011-11-25T09:50:00.000+02:00

We're very happy and excited to launch the website and the agenda for the European Climate Champions conference, taking place on the 14th - 15th December 2011!

The conference is the culmination point of the CHAMP project and is going to present the results of the project. Furthermore, we will discuss the integrated approach in local climate work more broadly and try to find solutions to the need of continuos capacity building for local authorities and form a bridge between the EU policies and the work that local authorities do.

We have been planning and preparing for the conference for a long time and are very thrilled to see how it really works in practice. After all, this will be the first ever online conference organised by the team!

See our Welcome video to find out more and save the date!

Climate 2011 - OR finding inspiration for the CHAMP final conference

2011-11-07T14:06:00.004+02:00

Currently everyone in the world can take part in the "World´s CO2-friendly scientific online conference" CLIMATE 2011, which runs from today until Saturday, 12th of November.

We do that for the third time, but this year it is a bit special: in 5 weeks we´ll launch the "European Climate Champions" final conference for the CHAMP project!

Online conferences become more and more common: either its possible to follow sessions as live streams in the internet, or videos are available afterwards, but there are also some "all-online" conferences, very often dealing with environmental or climate change related topics.

Meeting online is up-to-date, it´s easy (at least for the participants), it usually doesn´t cost any fees and you also save time and money with staying at your own desk - a lot of advantages!

Nevertheless there are still many that doubt that an online conference can be as efficient and resultful as a physical conference. The whole networking adn mingling part is missing as well as you are not physically bound to a place.
But is this necessarily negative?

Not in my opinion.

An online conference gives me the chance to listen to the presentations I am most interested(and skip those I am not), read and print papers that I might use later on and also it might be easier to ask questions in a discussion forum than in anauditorium with hundreds of people.
The biggest advantage is in my eyes, that you have the chance to take part in so many different events all over the worls without leaving your desk (and spend a lot of money on flight tickets)

The new possibilities will never replace face-to-face meetings but offer whole new ways of collaborating!

I am excited and happy that we have the chance to test this now with our online conference, it´s a lot of work and organisation, both content-wise and technical-wise, but we keep the fingers crossed that everything will work out.

So YOU are warmly invited to take part in the
"European Climate Champions" conference
14th-15th of December
at www.climatechampions.eu!

Revealing and inspiring to Success - CHAMP regional final conference

2011-10-17T09:58:00.015+03:00

The windmill farm just outside Liepaja rising around us while driving towards the UBC IX General Conference awoke a perfect positivism inside just before the CHAMP regional final conference in Liepaja. The purpose of our trip was to participate in the UBC General Conference as a CHAMP delegation and conduct the regional final conference of CHAMP in the Baltic Sea Region.

The three year CHAMP project is moving closer to the end. October 4th – 7th in connection to the UBC IX General Conference, the CHAMP BSR final conference was held in form of two workshops. The first workshop on Success stories of Local climate change work in the Baltic Sea Region gathered Finnish CHAMP cities Lahti and Kotka to present and share their success stories. Besides hearing about the good practices and development in CHAMP cities, another theme was cooperation.

Swedish Climate Municipalities introduced their activities in supporting Swedish municipalities to a joint effort towards success in climate work. As a comment speech of parallel action in Finland the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, also a CHAMP partner, shared their experiences from their Climate Campaign. At the same time one of the new initiatives connecting cities and the signature of the Covenant of Mayors, NET-COM Networking the Covenant of Mayors was presented.

It is clear that cooperation is also needed in future, but how? In our opinion it will be in form of the European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management, launched in June this year. The partnership will consist of Training hubs offering support and IMS trainings to local and regional authorities,

Quoting a famous business quote and Pekka Salminen, Project Manager for CHAMP,
“If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive.
If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.”

The second part of the workshop, How to master climate change; success factors in local integrated climate management, put the focus on the elements of successful management, implementation and stakeholder involvement of local climate change work. Tampere city working towards carbon neutrality and a presentation on Successful stakeholder involvement from the Danish Board of Technology gave inspiration and set a base for discussion on various solutions in different cities.

Thinking about the expected outcomes of the CHAMP project – a Capacity Development Package, Publications, Case studies and continuity in form of the European partnership are now presented. Back from Liepaja, we are now at the office reprocessing the great work done by cities, but heading towards the Final Conference to be held December 14th – 15th. The Online conference European Climate Champions will have a great impact on the total carbon footprint of our project and will therefore fulfill the expected outcomes set three years ago. It’s time to assure proper headsets and connections and prepare for cooperation to become exponentially better in European climate work.

See the presentations of the CHAMP BSR final conference on the CHAMP website

Pictures: UBC Env Com/ Liepaja 2011

Working from home to save climate?

2011-09-19T14:02:00.014+03:00

Last week, the first National Distance Work Day took place in Finland, resulting in 50 000 kg save in CO2 emissions. Furthermore, over 10 000 participants saved 8 200 hours of travelling time. More time to spend with their families and doing whatever they enjoy and keeps them energetic at work! Besides being seen as giving more freedom to the employees and thus increasing motivation to work, distance work also saves time, money and is helping to achieve climate goals.

From the point of view of slowing down climate change, the biggest benefit of working from home is the reduced need to travel. For most people, travelling to work is the main source of their transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Some 15 % of Finnish labour force is weekly working from home with the help of information technology, but the amount could well be bigger. For many workplaces, more flexibility in where and when the work is done would not affect the results. In Finland, some 1.6 million commutes are made by car every day, resulting in congestion peaks in the morning and afternoon.

This week we're celebrating the annual European Mobility Week. The campaign aims at familiarizing citizens with the use of public transport, cycling, walking and encouraging cities to promote these sustainable modes of transport. Besides fighting atmospheric pollution and noise, it's also a question of improving the quality of urban life.

Many cities in most of the Baltic Sea Region countries are campaigning for sustainable urban mobility. See on the European Mobility Week website what is happening in your home town!

Picture: Valonia. Campaigning in Turku on the national distance work day - No need to worry about the dress code when you're working from home!

What is the most wanted job in the future?

2011-08-19T15:26:00.005+03:00

Checking statistics in selecting education tracks, it seems like accounting is an ever solid choice for the future. The pattern has its reason; a monetary world needs experts in monetary logistics at all levels. I’d like to ask for a minute of thought. What if a nation state, company or family would one day count their assets in ecological wealth? To clarify, this would mean counting debit and credit according to ecological footprint within the limits of biocapacity of the specific entity. In the visualization below you can familiarise with the thought, where the traditional parts are reversed for many countries.

Biocapacity Debtors (red)
Footprint greater than biocapacity
150%
100 –150%
50 –100%
0 – 50%
Biocapacity Creditors (green)
Biocapacity greater than Footprint
0 – 50%
50 –100%
100 –150%
150%

To quote the Annual Report 2010 of the Global Footprint Network, I’d like to agree that ”deforestation, reduced cropland productivity and the collapse of fisheries are not the problem”. The years-long discussion on climate change, finger-pointing at single fields of production; who’s fault is this, who amplifies climate change most, and what not, should be halted for a while and pulled back to the core. The Global Footprint Network continues, “each of these crises, though alarming, is a symptom of a single, over-riding issue”.

Lately we have seen a fairly positive trend rising, at least in the Nordic countries that endeavour to downsize the needs, desires and demands of everyday life. We have seen small local grocery shops popping up in urban neighbourhoods, and areas for cultivation near cities where urban citizens can grow their own vegetables. The vibrant weekend flea markets are providing both a lingering experience and good bargains. When humanity is demanding more than the earth can provide, we should be focusing on the core dilemma and encouraging world citizens to reshape their demands. As similar behavioural changes do not happen over night, it is convenient to start from redesigning matters into new forms, suitable in a more ecologically aware world.

The Global Footprint Network claims that decision-makers are employing Ecological Footprint accounting to manage their ecological capital more than ever, now and for the long-term. If I manage to connect matters right, I’d want to mention the lately pulsating market on emissions trading. For what I have understood the world is fairly united in its opinions about the trading. Is this real, a preliminary solution for an enhanced value of monetary nature of the climate? In a way I’m shocked over the facileness of changing the conception of wealth. When money talks - when the air we breathe starts to cost the conception changes. Facile! We are there.

The conception of the secure solid future job has been adapted to the new form as well. So, it is allowed to keep on dreaming about the secure job as accountant at company X (supposing that a big part of students at the schools of economics do). This time the regular accountant just has double the responsibility, a world economical and world ecological one. Are you ready for the challenge?

Source and inspiration: Global Footprint Network - 2010 Annual Report

Taste the sun - by Solar Kitchen

2011-07-22T15:15:00.017+03:00

Walking down the side of River Aura, City of Turku (Finland), on this perfect sunny Friday lunch breake, five large solar-powered cookers catch our eyes in the middle of the piazza. Beside the now identified objects there is a worktable and closer to the river shore two longer tables are set, invitingly waiting to be filled by passers-by. There are yet a few empty chairs.

Hospitality and culinary expert, facilitator and concept director Antto Melasniemi functions as Chef de Cuisine of the Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant set today at Vähätori in Turku. Finnish Melasniemi is renowned for his Hel Yes! pop-up restaurant in London, runs two restaurants in Helsinki and seemingly cooks at the Solar Kitchen during the summer. Co-partner and designer of the cookers, Martí Guixé has exhibited in the most known museums of modern art and is dedicating himself to the invention of “bright and simple ideas made of a curious seriousness”.

Lapin Kulta Solar Kitchen Restaurant is based on a solar kitchen concept where cooking is by pure solar energy. The Solar Kitchen Restaurant opened at the Triennale di Milano 12.4-17.4.2011, and aims to follow the sun through Europe this summer, visiting a range of cities where it will present this extraordinary culinary concept. Melasniemi himself reveals Helsinki and Berlin being on the map some time soon. The Solar Kitchen highlights key contemporary themes: a nature-driven process, flexibility and immediacy.

This environmental and gastronomic art project as well as a gourmet eatery visited Turku today. Next week, who knows, maybe they are about Berlin. You should probably check out where the sun is shining!

Not for traditional busy business lunches. Take it easy and enjoy immediacy! Kitchen open on sunny days.

Get your invitation on Facebook.
For a flexible timetable, check the weather forecast in Europe!

Picture 2: Antto Melasniemi is looking for the Sun god.

Picture sources:
Picture 1 - UBC Environmental Commission/ Anna Stenberg
Picture 2 - Copyright © by IMAGEKONTAINER.

Climate adaptation - Science vs. Practice?!

2011-07-08T11:40:00.007+03:00

On May 31st the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation (BSSSC) and the Baltex Secretariat invited practitioners, scientists and decision makers at the regional political level in the Baltic Sea Region a platform to present and discuss concrete examples of regional or local adaptation to climate change.

The biggest challenge of the conference was to find a common language and discussion basis for the diverse audience: scientists and practitioners and decision-makers from regional and local authorities.
Several researchers presented current projects working with the issue of climate adpataion in the region; from projects on adaptation strategies, involvement of stakeholders or capacity buidling to the issue of transferring scientific knowledge to decision-makers.

In the end, the most interesting and inspiring input came from the cities and regions themselves; especially Swedish and Danis cities and regions took the chance to show off what they have been working on and implementing in terms of climate adaptation and those experiences were very inspiring!

The need for a better understanding, better cooperation and better communication between science and practice is definitely existing. the conference was a good point on the way, but there still is a bit to go.

All presentations and the Hamburg declaration can be found from the Baltex-website

The small show which way Europe should walk.

2011-06-22T17:07:00.009+03:00

The RES (renewable energy sources) Champions League announced its winners for the second time, this year in Prague. The RES Champions League is a network of national RES leagues, which aims at creating a positive renewable energy competition between European cities, towns and villages. According to the RES ranking, strong cities and towns are found in Germany, Italy and the Check Republic, but also other participating countries like Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and France are showing successful and innovative example to Europe.

Besides celebrating the winners, the RES Champions League conference provided an experience ex-change, where various RES solutions used by towns and cities were presented during the conference. As being organized in Prague, it also brought a reminder about the current Czech government policy, which, in comparison with the EU accent on the green energy, is driving in opposite direction.

The final rankings can be found on RES Champions Leagu e home page. A great hurray and respect should be directed to these cities and towns for taking an entrepreneurial grip on the matter, supporting the development of renewable energy sources on a concrete level and at the same time showing direction to whole Europe. It is with thrill that we can wait and expect big cities, even metropolises to being able to implement similar solutions in a somewhat bigger scale to underpin the result of climate change mitigation even more.

CHAMP countries are already represented
CLER (France) co-ordinates the project, and the following organisations function as project partners: Solarthemen in Germany, LEA in Czech republic, PNEC in Poland, ABEA in Bulgaria, EKKE in Hungary, Legambiente in Italy, Climate Alliance in Germany, DUH in Germany

The competition is targeted at cities and towns working for the development of renewable energies. All CHAMP partners (besides Finland) can already participate, as they are represented as a nation in RES CL. It is also possible, even desirable to set up a new National RES Champion Leagues! To know more about the competition that will certainly be open again next year, please visit the web site.

The principles of the RES Champions League:
One index: based on installed power (or area) per inhabitant
Two energies: solar (photovoltaic and thermal) and wood (heat)
One general ranking (all sizes) and three divisions:
- small cities and towns (between 5,000 and 19,999 inhabitants)
- medium cities and towns (between 20,000 and 99,999 inhabitants)
- large cities and towns (more than 100,000 inhabitants)

Source: RES CL
Picture source: RES CL

Partnership is the key

2011-06-14T10:56:00.009+03:00

If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive.
If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.

That's how the CHAMP Project Manager Pekka Salminen summed up the benefits of the newly established European Partnership for Integrated Sustainability Management. Like we wrote earlier in this blog, the European Partnership was succesfully launched in connection with the Resilient Cities 2011 conference in Bonn on June 4th.

The European Partnership was established by the CHAMP project consortium partners and new national training hubs in four other European countries or regions. The new signatories of the Partnership are SES Efficiency, and Observatory for Sustainability from Spain, the Forum of Adriatic and Ionian Cities, Sendzimir Foundation from Poland and the regional training center for local public administration Sibiu. Poland, Romania, Spain and Adriatic and Ionian region. The aim is to develop common capacity building services for local and regional authorities. This is done through National Training Hubs in each country, with a special focus on an Integrated Management System for sustainability.

We are currently searching for new national training hubs in all European countries. If your organisation might be interested, read more on the CHAMP project website!

Finding Win Wind solutions for Europe

2011-05-31T14:36:00.007+03:00

The times of recession are turning and the world can go back to efficient production. Unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency state that greenhouse gas emissions are increasing again, faster than ever, hitting records last year. Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA note that the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled, showing also that the significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago.

At the same time the Fukushima catastrophy makes minds turn about nuclear power. Germany’s decision to shut all nuclear reactors by 2022, makes the situation on greenhouse gas emissions even more interesting. How is Germany planning to reach its ambitiously set goals on CO2 reduction? Ac-cording to Reuter, Angela Merkel’s ruling Coalition has planned to cut power use by 10 percent by 2020 and further expand the use of renewable energy such as wind and solar power. This is a piece of good news! Europe’s biggest economy has opened the doors to suppliers of renewable solutions, showing example also to others who will be affected by the closure of nuclear stations. In yesterday’s news a representative of a Finnish Wind Power provider happily expressed his enthusiasm to stand in the first row to sell their solutions around Europe.

What about the German-Russian natural gas pipeline that was completed earlier this month, and the second that is being built? Nord Stream Joint Venture is enjoying favourable times. Fukushima came just on time for a German decision on nuclear power, and a more easily accepted transition into lighting German houses through the Natural Gas pipeline that has awoke much mystification especially in the states between Europe’s two power poles. John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, reminds about the ways politicians and other actors in the world’s great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world's last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic.

Indeed, Germany is showing example on what kind of energy source is desirable to be used to reach goals on emissions reduction. I hope that the Finnish Wind Power provider will make it to the first row and has a clear throat when selling his solutions. There seems to be a somewhat bigger actor on the playground, with a stronger voice. It will not be easy to convince decision makers on the “Win Wind situation”, when gas is soon to be provided directly from underneath the surface of the Baltic Sea.

Foto: City of turku

AFP:
YLE Uutiset

The Guardian: Fiona Harvey

Summer School: Climate change in cities and city regions – Time to adapt?

2011-05-20T14:30:00.008+03:00

I know what I'll be doing next summer - attending the interesting Summer School '''Climate change in cities and city regions - Time to adapt?''', which will take place at HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) as part of the BaltCICA project.

The summer school will address the impact of climate change with the focus on the resulting responsibilities for the urban and rural areas at Elbe estuary. It consists of two modules, the first being a Metropolitan Adaptation Lab and the second a Scenario Workshop.

The summer school is an exciting opportunity for practitioners, students and young researchers of most diverse specializations and branches, ranging from urban and regional planning, environmental sciences, geography, social sciences, ecological sciences, technical engineers with interest in climate change and climate adaptation.

During the week the participants will attend seminars and experience the impacts of climate change in Hamburg and how the latest scientific knowledge is transferred into innovative adaptation measures. In line with that, the attendees will study many aspects of climate change and the role of planning in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Finally they will develop innovative solutions to adapt to a changing climate.

The Summer School will take place organized at the HafenCity University Hamburg from September 26th to 30th 2011 in Hamburg. How will you spend your summer?

See the agenda for the Summer School here and register here by May 31st!
Pictures: Stefanie Lange

A livable city – it can depend on so little.

2011-05-10T15:01:00.008+03:00

Image source: http://blogs.lanacion.com.ar/ecologico/files/2011/03/entrada-549x435.jpg

Royal Philips Electronics launched in May 2010 an innovation contest Philips Livable Cities Award to find new solutions for improving health and well-being in cities. 2010-2011 has been the first year of the contest and it drew 450 ideas from 29 countries, eight of which were selected as finalists. Sabrina Faber's "Rainwater Aggregation for Yemen" was chosen as the overall winner at a ceremony two weeks ago in Amsterdam. She was granted €75,000 to start working with local contractors and associations to begin implementing the idea on the city of Sana'a buildings in Yemen.

The competition attracted innovative people to create new ways of making a difference in people’s lives. Out of the top ideas, one can find solutions in the fields of: Rainwater aggregation, Shelter from extreme weather conditions, Recreation on the streets, Sports in the city, Virtual elderly care, City re-generation, Neighbourhood and Education.

Second-place winner Manuel Rapoport's project “Plaza Movil Street Park” will create safe, portable recreational areas in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by temporarily closing streets to motorized traffic on weekends and during public holidays. These recreational facilities can be moved from one place to an-other, wherever and whenever needed.

Exactly, Why not closing one or two cross streets for Friday night moonlight Milongas? As we know also Finns are great tangueros, so bring the tango to the streets! It is possible to let the bon vivant out even within a modest Finn, it just requires space, a space meant for enjoyment, denuded of noise and distraction. Enjoying life is about those few moments; they depend on so little.

Just as important as the wellbeing of the environment, is the social wellbeing that also increases the quality of life. There are the corners in the world, where it is enough to get basic needs such as drinking water fulfilled each day, while somewhere else the recreational perspective has a bigger value. Combining these two one can bring recreation to a very simple and fundamental level, for example in the heat of dancing in an open public space – the street.

For 2011-2012 Philips is committed to building on the Livable City program’s strengths to further recognize meaningful innovations which make a real difference to people’s lives

European Partnership on Integrated Urban Sustainability Management launched in June!

2011-04-21T12:59:00.004+03:00

The CHAMP project consortium is launching a European Partnership on Integrated Urban Sustainability Management on the 4th of June in Brussels, in connection with the Resilient Cities Conference.

The European Partnership aims at establishing a long sustaining support structure for local sustainability. It will further develop the goals of CHAMP and serves as a competence network for exchange and knowledge growth. Moreover, it will provide members with training on integrated sustainability management and increase the interaction various campaigns and initiatives. The Partnership targets organizations that can facilitate and train local authorities in using the Integrated Management System, but it also welcomes interested local and regional authorities.

For more information about the event and the European Partnership, have a look at the CHAMP website and join us in the launching event!

Thinking about the gender-climate link

2011-04-14T11:09:00.007+03:00

The developing countries are experiencing the impacts of climate change first-handed. Especially women in those countries are vulnerable to ethe ffects of the changing climate. Recognizing the gender-climate link is only one point of view to the issue, but it's still a significant one.

Men and women are affected by the climate change in a different way . This is caused for instance by the distribution of work and cultural norms. Being poor makes people more vulnerable to the effects of climate change no matter if you are a man or a woman. However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 70 % of the world's poor are women. The impacts of climate change are expected to increase poverty and thus lead to increased gender inequality, too.

Should we look at the gender aspects of climate change also in the rich north? The differences are not only visible in developing countries. For the Nordic people in general are not used to heat waves and especially the elderly, most of them being women, are severely affected by the hot weather. Certain professions in the European countries are strongly dominated by women or men. If certain professions are suffering from the changing climate, also gender effects could be notable. What is certain is that more information on the impacts of climate change from the gender point of view is needed both in the south and in the north.

Photo: UNWOMEN
More information:
UNDP Resource guide on Gender and Climate Change
Gender into Climate Change: Toolkit for climate experts and decision-makers

Climate Week in the UK

2011-03-23T09:42:00.003+02:00

What is the key to attain decreases in greenhouse gas emissions and to respond to the climate change challenge? The ongoing Climate Week (21st - 27th March) in the UK is focusing on organizations, both public and private. This is because although there are a lot of campaigns to change the personal lifestyles of people, the Climate Week assumes that people can have more impact if they bring about policy changes in their workplace, parish or schools.

The Climate Week is full of local low-carbon events, includes an award for green achievements and a national Climate Change Challenge "Develop a green idea to save money or make money". The aim of the week is to showcase the solutions that will enable us to combat climate change, and inspire action during the other 51 weeks of the year. The Climate Week is business-backed, including also controversial supporters like Tesco and the Royal Bank of Scotland. It has been argued that the campaign is letting the big corporations off the hook by concentrating on the small improvements that they make, instead of really changing the way they do business. After all, is the problem really the lack of awareness of citizens or are the carbon-intensive big corporations the real key players in solving the problem of climate change?

Climate dish

2011-03-07T15:52:00.001+02:00

Talking about food and climate....

The Livewell diet for a healthier planet

2011-03-02T16:58:00.005+02:00

Have you ever considered how your diet affects the environment? WWF UK has come up with Livewell diet to encourage people to take up a healthy diet for a healthier planet. How we eat is also a significant aspect when thinking of climate change: for example in the UK around one third of the CO2 emissions are related to food production.

Many of us would like to eat in a more environmentally friendly way, but the amount of information is often overwhelming. This time, the WWF and their research partners have tried to make it simple: they provide the readers with shopping lists and a weekly menu.

Picture from the Guardian.

More information: The Livewell report

Local Solutions found!

2011-02-10T11:58:00.001+02:00

It was all about solutions from 31.1.-2.2.2011 in Turku, Finland, where the biggest Nordic Sustainability conference took place.
About 600 participants gathered to learn from each other and discuss local solutions for sustainability challenges.

One of the parallel sessions was devoted to climate change and energy and the presenters showed off their solutions in processes to tackle climate change, eco- and energy-efficient technologies and renewable energies.

Learn more about the conference and see all presentations here

Carbon Disclosure in cities

2011-01-20T15:55:00.007+02:00

As it becomes more and more common for cities to actively mitigate and adapt to climate change, also the amount of commitments for cutting local carbon emissions increases. For monitoring and evaluating if these commitments are reached it is naturally important to track the carbon emissions of the cities. But is it clear how that is done?

The Carbon Disclosure Project has been tracking corporate carbon emissions and other climate information for years. Now they have asked 40 biggest cities in the world to come clean on carbon and publicly the carbon footprint of the cities, that include Delhi, London, Moscow, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo. The findings are planned to be released in May.

See more in the video about the Carbon Disclosure Project:

Find out more: Carbon Disclosure Project

Local governments recognized as key actors against climate change in Cancun

2010-12-17T13:06:00.013+02:00

The international climate negotiations held in Cancun on 29th November - 10th December ended up with an agreement that gives hope to reaching a global post-Kyoto agreement in the next negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

What was agreed on was forest protection and the establishment of a Green Fund to deliver funding to developing countries. The agreement also officially recognises that the goal should be to halt global climate change to 2°C. Although there was still no agreement on emission cuts, the result can still be considered as a milestone for the negotiations.

Local governments have been struggling to get their voice heard in the global climate negotiations. After all, it's them that implement the agreed mitigation or adaptation measures in practice. As the press release by ICLEI puts it, "Local governments have to deal with the problem as it’s on their door step – whether there is a global agreement between national governments or not". In Cancun, local governments were finally recognized by states as governmental stakeholders and got observer status which nine other groups such as farmers, youth or women's organisations have earlier obtained.

Photo: Jan Golinski, UNFCCC

Cities Climate Registry - carbonn

2010-11-30T10:37:00.007+02:00

At World Mayors Summit on Climate, the role of local action in the climate change mitigation and adaptation was again stressed. The potential of cities should be taken into account in the international climate negotiations like it was done at the Biodiversity Summit in Nagoya a couple of weeks ago.

There, a plan of action on cities and biodiversity was adopted by the Nagoya Biodiversity City summit. Also in other ways, Nagoya was a success we only wish to see in the international climate negotiations: the COP16 meeting in Cancun started yesterday without any hope of a binding climate agreement.

At World Mayors Summit, cities from all over the world signed the Mexico city Pact on 21 November and thus committed to the reduction of urban greenhouse gas emissions. One way to facilitate local climate action and help cities make climate commitments that the world can count on is the recently published carbonn Cities Climate Registry carbonn (cCCR) developed by ICLEI and UNEP .

The cCCR supports the global credibility of local climate action by allowing transparency, accountability and comparability of climate actions, performance and commitments. Amongst other things, the cCCR integrates the climate commitments of cities into its database, allows cities to register their greenhouse gas reduction commitments and report their performance and actions.

See how your city could benefit from Cities Climate Registry!

Combatting Climate Change in 30 Ways, in 30 Days

2010-11-16T10:00:00.012+02:00

As the UN Climate Convention meeting in Cancun approaches, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) wants to highlight that finding solutions to climate change is possible for communities, enterprises and countries in many ways.

UNEP wants to inspire action on climate change by presenting 30 ways to tackle the challenge in 30 days. It releases online case studies to show that solutions to climate change are available and could be copied and scaled up around the world if only governments, enterprises and communities were interested in moving towards low-emission climate-resilient growth.

Read more about the case studies that include Indian solar loans programme, The Green Passport Campaign and improved stoves in Haiti and Nigeria.

More information: UNEP 30 Ways in 30 Days
Picture: UNEP / Indian Solar Programme

Roadmap for Zero Carbon Britain

2010-11-05T12:21:00.009+02:00

A recently published report by the UK Centre for Alternative Technology suggests that the UK could become carbon-free by 2030. This means that in 20 years, the UK could reduce its carbon emissions by 90 % and offset the remaining 10 % of the emissions.

The report provides a road map for achieving the goal of a carbon-free society. To this end, adopting environmental technologies, reducing fossil fuel use, increasing resource efficiency and significant societal behaviour changes are all necessary. The report offers a variety of actions that make zero carbon society seem possible, at the same time creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and addressing environmental challenges.

Individuals and communities must play their part in decreasing carbon emissions. Here, the key is to promote new technologies, eco-design and foster new environmentally friendly social norms. Most importantly, however, the report states a international climate agreement is needed.

More information: Environmental Technologies Action Plan.
Read the Zero Carbon Britain report.

European Green Capitals for 2012, 2013 awarded

2010-10-25T21:49:00.000+03:00

The environmental issues in Europe will be most likely solved in cities, if they are to be solved at all. Some cities are definitely greener than others. This time, the cities of Vitoria-Gasteiz and Nantes have been announced to be the European Green Capitals for 2012 and 2013 in the ceremony organised in the present Green Capital Stockholm.

From the winning cities, Nantes in France has a climate action plan with the aim of decreasing CO2 emissions by 25% by year 2020 (ref. 1990). The climate action plan was approved by the city council already in 2007 and since, the aim has been to integrate all public policies in the climate work and to quantify CO2 emission in all projects in the city.

Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain excels especially in the high proportion of green public areas in the city, ensuring its entire population live within 300 metres of an open green space.

More information: European Green Capital

Mapping global ecological footprint

2010-10-15T14:39:00.007+03:00

A recently published Living Planet 2010 report by WWF shows that the Earth's population is using the equivalent of 1.5 planets' worth of natural resources and that biodiversity has fallen nearly 60% in low-income countries in less than 40 years. The report also states that carbon now accounts for over half the global ecological footprint. This somewhat depressing information should encourage us to find solutions and tools to halt the biodiversity loss and diminish our carbon footprint.

Luckily there are some good news, too. In non-tropical parts of the world, there’s actually been an increase in species numbers, by around 30% on average. This is due to greater conservation efforts and pollution control.

In this Ecological Footprint Index below you are able to search footprints by country.

The global average of the ecological footprint is three hectares, meaning the area required to provide the resources consumed by the population or average person in a year. The consumption of natural resources in the rich countries is on average five times higher than in the poorest countries.

More information: WWF Living Planet Report 2010

Solutions local, together

2010-10-01T11:35:00.006+03:00

On 31 January - 2 February 2011, the conference Solutions local, together will fill the city of Turku, Finland with enthusiastic people in search of sustainable local solutions. The Conference will concentrate on introducing practical solutions and inspiring participants to use them locally, together with other stakeholders.

The preliminary programme for the conference is out now and registration is open. During three days, the conference introduces high-profile speakers, interesting parallel sessions as well as a variety of praxis visits and sustainable side events.

What makes Solutions local, together extremely interesting is the fact that sustainability is a top priority in organising the conference and the conference aims to set a model example of a sustainable conference and develops new practices for sustainable way of event organisation. As part of the process, menus with 80% of locally produced food will be launched in several local restaurants during the conference. Also in CHAMP project we aim at managing the project in a sustainable way, concentrating especially on our carbon footprint. In low carbon project management, greening the way of organising events is crucial.

Register quickly, as places are limited and early-bird rate applies until the end of October! Take a closer look on the website: www.solutions2011.fi
Read more about low carbon project management in CHAMP here.

European cities acting for more sustainable transport

2010-09-17T09:56:00.006+03:00

Sustainable transport is a question of fighting atmospheric pollution and noise but it also has a major role in improving the quality of life in urban areas.

European Mobility Week is an awareness raising campaign that aims to encourage public awareness of the need to act against pollution caused by the increase in motorised traffic in the urban environment. The campaign is encouraging European cities to promote public transport, cycling and walking and to invest in the new necessary infrastructures.

From 16 to 22 September 2010 the Mobility Week is the opportunity for European cities and towns to participate to the most widespread event on sustainable mobility. On 22 September, the Mobility Week is brought to a head by the Carfree day when everybody is encouraged to leave their car home for a day and use public transport, cycle or walk.

Almost 2000 cities and towns participate in the European Mobility Week. See what's happening in your city on the campaign website!

Picture by European Mobility Week. The Mobility Week in Requena, Spain, 2008.

On Saturday, we exceeded nature's budget

2010-08-23T11:23:00.007+03:00

On August 21, it is Earth Overshoot Day: the day of the year in which human demand on the biosphere exceeds what it can regenerate. By last Saturday, humanity has demanded all the ecological services that nature can regenerate this year. For the rest of the year, we will be financing our consumption on credit.

"We know we are far from living within the means of one planet. The good news is, much of the technology we have to begin to address this problem is available and it is open source: things like compact urban design, energy-efficient housing, ecological tax reform, removal of resource subsidies, safe and affordable family planning, bicycles, low-meat diets, and life-cycle costing", said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel.

Last year, the Overshoot Day occurred almost a month later on September 25th, and we also wrote about it here in this blog. See the entry here. At the time, we promised more information on how we plan to minimize the ecological footprint of the CHAMP project. Since, we have drafted guidelines on Low-carbon project management to our project stakeholders.

Creating a carbon neutral district in Copenhagen

2010-08-02T15:00:00.002+03:00

Copenhagen has set a goal of becoming the first CO2 neutral city in 2025. To be able to achieve this, the city is planning to create a CO2 neutral city district as a model area.

Last year, as a part of the many projects developed in the municipality of Copenhagen in relation to the UN Climate Change Conference COP15, the city council carried out a case study to show how it would be possible to create a CO2 neutral neighbourhood. At the moment, the project is at the draft stage but it is being planned enthusiastically.

According to the plan, in the Amager Faelled city district, all buildings will be using less than 50 percent of the energy of standard buildings. A major percentage of the energy will come from wind turbines and buildings will also be equipped with solar cells and panels. In 2020, a resident of Amager Faelled Bykvarter will use 65 percent less energy than a Copenhagener consumed in 2008.

See the video introducing this interesting project!

Year 2010 is the warmest on record

2010-07-16T13:19:00.006+03:00

Extreme weather conditions, such as the past cold and snowy winter, easily make people say that climate change is nonsense and not really happening. Still, even with the current heat wave (that we at least in Finland are partly enjoying and partly suffering) it would be wrong to assume that any single weather event, whether it is a blizzard or a heat wave, offers evidence of climate change - for this, statistics have to be collected for a long period of time.

According to the recently published NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) report, last month was the warmest June on record and the warmest on record averaged for any January-June period for the combined global land and surface temperatures. The NOAA analysis is based on records going back to 1880. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for June 2010 was the warmest on record at 16.2°C while the 20th century average was 15.5°C.

This also backs up NASA's findings. In their report, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies notes that this is all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming “because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect”.

Sources:
Climate Progress articles here and here.

Carbon toe-prints or carbon footprints?

2010-06-28T14:26:00.018+03:00

Nowadays, there's a lot of discussion about carbon footprints. One can choose the most climate-friendly diet, car or holiday destination by comparing the carbon footprints of various products and services. The term carbon footprint can be defined as "shorthand to describe the best estimate that we can get of the full climate change impact of something." It is possible to estimate the carbon footprint for anything: a service or a product, an item or an activity, a country or a municipality. Or for example for the 2010 World Cup: 2.8 million tonnes of CO2.

In CHAMP we are also trying to promote low carbon footprint project management. In the project most of the carbon emissions are produced by travelling. For this reason, we are aiming at reducing our carbon footprint mainly by using e-communication instead of having to travel. As we were calculating our emissions caused by travelling, it was quite interesting to see how far from each other the results of different carbon calculators were.

There are great differences between the many carbon footprint calculators one finds online, and sometimes it is hard to evaluate which calculator gives the most truthful answer. The results some of the calculators could even be called carbon toe-prints since many of them don't take into account all emissions or even miss out most of the emissions. If we take for example flying, a lot more information than just the distance to destination is needed. An accurate calculation is only possible if the type of the plane, number of the stops etc. are known. The same goes with direct and indirect emissions - they must both be noticed to calculate the true carbon footprint of something.

Many online carbon calculators are only rough estimates but can anyway give a conception of the total climate impact a certain activity or item has. It is almost impossible to measure a carbon footprint accurately, but at the same time it is an essential part of understanding the whole picture of climate change response.

Source: The Guardian
Picture: Footprint Designs

Who's your World Environment Day hero?

2010-06-04T10:06:00.019+03:00

Tomorrow, on June 5th, we are celebrating World Environment Day (WED) 2010. WED has been organized by UNEP since 1972 and is aimed to be the biggest, most widely celebrated, global day for positive, environmental action. As part of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity, this year’s event will celebrate the incredible diversity of life on Earth under the theme Many Species. One Planet. One Future.

Last year, the topic of World Environment Day was climate change and the highlight of the celebrations was to launch the Climate Heroes. This year the Climate Heroes initiative has been broadened beyond just climate change-related advocates to include exceptional individuals advocating solutions for all environmental issues.

WED Heroes are individuals who inspire and motivate people to environmental actions by undertaking exceptional personal feats, high-profile expeditions, and other acts of environmental activism to demonstrate their commitment to the planet.

In the end, the WED heroes is a call for each of us to do what we can: from adopting the simplest habits like turning off running water when we are brushing our teeth, to organizing a public or workplace event for World Environment Day or even rowing across the Pacific Ocean, like a WED Hero Roz Savage did in 2009, and later walked 600 miles from London to Copenhagen for the UN climate conference.

See the World Wide WED here and find activities near you.

Pictures: UNEP

Dunkerque makes me think

2010-05-28T10:37:00.006+03:00

Last week the 6th Conference on European Sustainable Cities and Towns took place in Dunkerque, France. It resulted in a common Local Sustainability Declaration that stresses the need to create innovative, sustainable and inclusive communities.
At the same time a Call on Climate Action was released, which aimed at stressing the key role of local and regional governments in the international negotiations. Find more info here

In three days the over 1500 participants were offered panel discussions, parallel sessions to all kind of sustainability related topics and of course organistaions, regions, cities and companies presented themselves and their work for a more sustainable future.

The city of Dunkerque was the host - and they did great. The conference participants were well taken care of with volunteers and cocktail parties and shuttle busses. We got the impression that the whole city IS a conference venue and all citizens are happy to be part!

But it wasn´t. On the last morning the shuttle bus to the conference venue was escorted by a honking crowd of cars (which most of us mistook as a wedding/football game - reaction), just to see people unrolling banners in front of the Kursaal as well as on the beach, right at the lunch venue to demonstrate for "Solidarité" with them.
Those were people from the local chemical industry and oil plant, fearing to loose their jobs. So they were demonstrating against all the people at the conference, who want a sustainable, carbon(oil-free) world!

I have to say, that this end of the conference made me think.
Not that this was the most important that happened in Dunkerque and not that it "destroyed" the spirit that we had. But nevertheless it made me think, how people can demonstrate "against sustainable development" in which they mainly see a thread?

How do we actually communicate our vision of a sustainable future?And how holistic do we actually think? How much do we, who work with this everyday, actually really take into account the social aspect, the fear of people?
No doubt that the "unsustainable" industries employ loads of people...what alternatives do they have when (if!) industries are shut down?

A sustainable future is carried by people - not by political decisions and strategies or the economy. It´s about the people, who can influence with their everyday life, behaviours and choices.

But what if many see this sustainable future as something to be afraid of?
Isn´t it our task to take care of that, to improve our communication skills and messages that we give out? No doubt that a greener economy will also create loads of jobs, but this message seems not to have reached the people...

And isn´t a development only sustainable if all have the chance to get something out of it, live a good life and not fear?

No solutions from my side (yet), but this really makes me think.
Perhaps it makes you think, too.

You are welcome to leave your opinion here!

American cities acting for climate

2010-04-19T10:50:00.001+03:00

The USA is the 2nd largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. It is also a major player in international climate change negotiations but has been lacking the political will to commit to climate protection. This hasn't stopped cities of tackling the issue of climate change locally: many local governments have climate action plans and ambitious targets for cutting their GHG emissions.

The State of California at the head is adopting statewide climate policies and regulations. The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is expected to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Moreover, a law to redesign communities to reduce greenhouse gases connects land use with carbon reduction goals. By offering carrots, the regulations encourage cities to adopt a Sustainable Communities Strategy that requires new development to be near transit or clustered with existing development. Many Californian local governments, Santa Monica, Pasadena and Los Angeles, for example, have already implemented green building standards and resource GHG emissions programs.

At the same time, Austin, Texas is the first city in the US committing to going carbon neutral. Interestingly, Austin is the Capitol of a conservative state that is the national leader in greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007, Austin resolved to make city facilities, vehicles and operations carbon-neutral by 2020 and move the city-owned energy utility toward this goal over time. To this end, a Climate Action Plan targeting four areas: municipal operations, utility, homes and buildings, and community, is to be developed and implemented. In Austin, an integrated approach to climate work has been adopted: An inventory of greenhouse gas emissions has been completed for all city departments and a Climate Action Team composed of representatives from all city departments is working on department-specific plans to attain the municipal goal, as well as greenhouse gas-reduction strategies specific to their roles across all four areas.

Source:
SolveClimate.com / Patricia Kirk
Pictures: Cities of Los Angeles and Austin

Read more:
California Climate Change Portal
CoolCalifornia: Local Government Case Studies
Austin Climate Protection Program: CoolAustin.org

Cities are key to fight climate change

2010-03-26T12:47:00.003+02:00

With more than 50 % of the world' s population is living in cities, we are an urban species. Cities account for about 80 % of the world-wide pollution. According to Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, this clearly shows, that human species is putting the world in danger and cities are key in addressing this challenge. At the same time, cities are leading the world-wide process to fight climate change both in mitigation and adaptation. Adaptation strategies in developing countries are by nature survival strategies. Global climate governance should therefore include those managing the habitats. This discussion has been recorded as part of the series 'Time for Real Questions' during COP15 in Copenhagen.

Lights off on Saturday: It's Earth Hour!

2010-03-24T09:41:00.012+02:00

Earth Hour 2010 is taking place on Saturday the 27th of March, 8:30 PM (local time) and switching off the lights around the world for an hour. The idea is not to save electricity but to take a stand against climate change. Individuals, businesses and communities all over the world are called to action: to take responsibility and get involved in the fight against climate change.

In 2009, over 4 000 cities in 88 countries took part in Earth Hour making it the largest climate change initiative in the world. This year, many global landmarks such as the Eiffel tower in Paris, Big Ben in London, Empire State Building in New York City and Sydney Opera House are going to stand in darkness.

Earth Hour has been visible in social media such as Facebook and Twitter and there's a lot of enthusiasm around the event.One could ask if Earth Hour is really making a change. Turning off your lights for an hour per year is a great way to seem green to the public without really committing to mitigate climate change in everyday actions. But at the same time it is an easy way to show that you care.

One of the aims of Earth Hour is to show politicians the concern of the general public. Especially after the failure in the Copenhagen Summit, this kind of global campaign and enthusiasm is hopefully a way of giving world leaders the mandate they need to make the right climate deal.

More information on the campaign: Earth Hour website
Earth Hour is organized by WWF.

"Adaptigation"

2010-03-19T09:28:00.007+02:00

There are different views when it comes to administrations and climate change response. The opinion of many is that climate change mitigation is most important while others believe that adaptation to the effects of a changing climate is more critical. Most, however, admit that both perspectives have to be taken into account.

Recently there has been a dramatic change in the perspective of how administrations act in response to climate change. After focusing almost solely on climate change mitigation for years, different administrations are now concentrating more on climate change adaptation. According to a Senior Research Fellow in Nordregio, Richard Langlais, good planning integrates both perspectives: adaptation and mitigation. He argues that separating the two perspectives in planning is becoming obsolete and can also lead to contradictory measures.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change adoption is defined as "initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects". Climate change mitigation, on the other hand, means "implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance sinks".

Langlais uses a simple example of a municipality planting a new forest along a local river. As he argues, this measure should be seen as both adaptation and mitigation, that is: "adaptigation", by which he means a response to climate change that integrates a focus on adaptation with a focus on mitigation, to avoid conflicts and create synergies. "Seeing this newly planted forest as both adaptation (it buffers the impacts of flooding) and mitigation (it absorbs carbon) is good planning", writes Langlais. The most important thing is to keep "adaptigation" in mind: adaptation and mitigation can be outcomes of the same measures.

Source: Richard Langlais, Journal of Nordregio 9:4, 2009.

"The Bill" - short film

2009-12-04T11:06:00.004+02:00

In anticipation to the COP 15:

"The Bill" is a 4 min short film made by Germanwatch and funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Three friends meet in a bar and start talking about their lives. Cars, holidays, energy and diet represent a colorful range of "climate sins". With the appearance of the barmaid, the film takes a surprising change of course...
The screenplay was produced as a film in May, 2009. The actors Benno Fuermann, Bjarne Maedel, Christoph Tomanek und Ina Paule Klink took part; Peter Wedel directed.
Contakt: Peter Wedel, ECOFILM, peterwedel@web.de, http://www.eco-film.de/

Today is Earth Overshoot Day!

2009-09-25T10:44:00.001+03:00

But what does that mean?

Earth overshoot day marks the day when we start living beyond our ecological means. We use more resources at a faster rate as what the Earth can regenerate in one year. So not a day to celebrate.

Source: Global Foorprint Network

The Global Foorprint Network is publishing that we would now require 1.4 planets to support our lifestyles, that means in less than 10 months we have used ecological services that take 12 months for the Earth to generate

And the overshoot day gets earlier every year!

This is definitely something to think about!

On the websites of Global Foorprint Network you find much more information about how this is calculated etc.

Of course the Earth Overshoot Day is something where all aspects of global actions are cncerned, still action ahs to be taken just in everyday life.

In CHAMP we will develop collection of calculators and guidelines on how to decrease the carbon footprint in travels, meetings and other activities that we hav ein projects. We want to encourage our cities and other stakeholders to think about this issue and to do what they are able to do.

More information on that will come later, here and on our website

Algae to the rescue

2009-08-24T10:31:00.007+03:00

The California based company Aurora Biofuels have successfully cultivated a new strain of algae that absorbs twice as much CO2 and produces double the amount of biofuel as conventional strains. In a pilot facility in Melbourne (FL) this new algae strain has reached a daily biodiesel production of one gallon (3,79 liters) in a olymic pool sized pond.

According to Robert Walsh the CEO of Aurora:

"Algae have a built-in mechanism to be effective at low light and as it gets brighter during the day their uptake of carbon dioxide levels off,” said Mr. Walsh. “We’ve been able to go in and alter strains by natural mutation to cause the algae to deal with light across the whole spectrum. The algae continue to uptake CO2 through brighter light and are more productive."

The company plans to open a demonstration plant capable of producing daily 1,000 gallons of fuel in operation by the second quarter of 2010. A full-scale production facility is to follow in 2011.

Do you think the use of algae can contribute to the fight against climate change?

Source: greeninc

Report: Ensuring quality of life in Europe's cities and towns.

2009-08-20T08:37:00.001+03:00

Ensuring quality of life in Europe's cities and towns – report developed jointly by several organizations is now available. Get to know more about the various perspectives on, and perceptions of, quality of life with a specific focus on cities and towns. The report stresses the challenges ahead to ensure quality of life in the long run for all social groups, and the crucial importance of sustainability and the environment as our life supporting system. The report sheds light on certain aspects of the current quality of life discussions in order to illustrate how different conceptions of quality of life influence the quality of life of others, and provides ideas for ways to meet the challenges that lie ahead. It aims to support individuals and politicians to discover a balanced concept for quality of life compatible with sustainable development. EEA Report No 5/2009

read more

Buy your own carbon emission permits.

2009-08-06T10:16:00.009+03:00

In order to fight climate change, policy makers have developed carbon emission permits which control the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. There are a limited amount of permits and they must be bought by the polluters so they can keep on there production/pollution.

Sandbag is a non profit community organization who wants to influence this market by collecting money and buying carbon emission permits. This way there are less permits available which means the price of the emission permits will rise. If the price increases polluters will have to pay more for there emissions and will consider investing in cleaner technologies rather than buying emissions credits to cover their excess pollution.

Source: sandbag

The Volvo Experience

2009-07-30T15:30:00.007+03:00

Volvo has launched a remarkable campaign in the Netherlands. People who purchase a Volvo C30 in the Netherlands can pick up there car in Göteborg (Sweden). The trip, visit to the Torslande car factory and Volvo museum are included in the car's price.

This is a nice initiative to promote Volvo and the Swedish culture, if it was not for the fact that the C30 is being assembled in Ghent (Belgium), located close to the Dutch border. These brand new cars have to travel over 1000 km north to reach Göteborg so there Dutch owners can fly to Sweden, pick them up and drive them through Denmark, Germany to finally reach the Netherlands.

This seems a bit of an odd strategy. You design and build a fuel efficient car, promote yourself as a green company then you ask your buyers to pick up the car on the other side of Europe.

picture: Google Maps

Will CCS be part of the solution?

2009-07-30T09:42:00.012+03:00

Dealing with climate change can be done in different ways, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a possibility still in the development phase. The German pilot project shows us that CCS has a long way to go before becoming operational.

What is CCS and how can it help us in the struggle against climate change? The main idea is to capture and store CO2 so it does not reach the earth's atmosphere. This will be achieved by introducing a CCS technology near a large scale emitter of CO2, like a fossil fuel power plant. The CO2 is captured by scrubbing it from the air and can be stored underground.

The first pilot Carbon Capture and Storage power plant in Germany has not been successful so far:

"Vattenfall’s Schwarze Pumpe project in Spremberg, northern Germany, launched in a blaze of publicity last September, was a beacon of hope, the first scheme to link the three key stages of trapping, transporting and burying the greenhouse gases.

The Swedish company, however, surprised a recent conference when it admitted that the €70m (£60.3m) project was venting the CO2 straight into the atmosphere. “It was supposed to begin injecting by March or April of this year but we don’t have a permit. This is a result of the local public having questions about the safety of the project,” said Staffan Gortz, head of carbon capture and storage communication at Vattenfall. He said he did not expect to get a permit before next spring: “People are very, very sceptical.”

The spread of localised resistance is a force that some fear could sink Europe’s attempts to build 10 to 12 demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2015. The plan had been to transport up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the power plant each year and inject it into depleted gas reservoirs at a giant gasfield near the Polish border….

Stuart Haszeldine, a CCS expert at the University of Edinburgh, warned of the danger of opposition towards CCS snowballing into a “bandwagon of negativity” if too many early projects were rejected. “Once you’ve screwed up one or two of them, people are going to think ‘if they rejected this in Barendrecht, there must be a reason’,” he said."

The public opinion is very negative towards these new technologies. As time is running out we need to deal with this threat now and by opposing helpful measures we are only getting further away from our goal.

Sources:
Grist
The Guardian

What about the Water Footprint?

2009-07-23T10:07:00.013+03:00

The Carbon Footprint finally seems to have taken off and now a new tool emerges the Water Footprint. Similar to the Carbon Footprint the Water Footprint can be used to calculate your water usage.

This tool can also be used in a more interesting way, manufacturers can label there products' footprint so consumers are aware how much water a certain item uses during it's manufacturing process. Did you know that for the production of one cup of fresh coffee you need 140 litres of water while the production of one kilogram of beef requires 16,000 litres of water.

An pioneer in this field is Raisio a Finnish food manufacturer who introduced a H2O label on its oat flakes.

According to the New York Times:

"Over the past couple of years, the idea of reporting carbon footprints for various products, as a way of allowing consumers to make informed choices about the items they buy, has gained wider acceptance. Now there are signs that other indicators — including water-use footprints — appear to be coming into the mix.

The label used by Raisio indicates the water that the plant uses for growth and production, as well as what’s discarded as waste water. The company said it was “the world’s first food company to add an H2O label to product packaging” and that it had developed its own calculation model because no internationally established formula and product label yet exists."

Would you keep in mind a carbon or water footprint when deciding which product you will purchase? Or do you think labeling is getting out of control?

Source: Worldchanging

G8 summit in L'Aquila

2009-07-10T09:16:00.011+03:00

L'Aquila (it), ravaged by a devastating earthquake earlier this year, hosted on the 8th, 9th and 10th of July 2009 the G8 summit. On the agenda: reaching an agreement on the climate change objectives.

The first day the G8 top came to the consensus that they will not allow a raise in temperature by more than two degrees Celsius in comparison to the level of the beginning of last century.

On the second day the G8 summit expanded with the emerging economies, the result: The emerging economies agree with the objectives but do not want to cut down there CO2 emissions with 50% by 2050.

During the last day they decided a change of course in there policy towards the fight against malnutricion. Instead of donating loads of food there will be investments in the third worlds' food production.

There have been made some important steps towards the climate change threath, let us hope they are sufficient and lead to action.

Reflection on The Green Week

2009-07-09T14:13:00.016+03:00

The Green Week is now well behind us and it is time to take a moment and look back on this event. It has been a great opportunity for CHAMP to take part in a big and international event. We were able to reach many different actors and attend numerous conferences.

European commissioner for the environment Stavros Dimas said: “We need an ambitious international agreement at the Copenhagen conference in December followed by determined and effective international action. It is the future of our planet that is at stake and time is running out.” He added that, “Climate change is a cross-cutting issue that not only affects the natural environment we depend on but also has important impacts on our economies and social fabric.” We feel that the world is comming to crossroads, the decisions made in the upcomming COP15 will have a great influence in the outcome of climate change.

Picture by Sven Schultz

The Age of Stupid

2009-06-25T14:00:00.004+03:00

Yesterdays evening event on the Green Week was a screening of the very new movie " The Age of Stupid", directed by Fanny Armstrong,a young and very dedicated British filmmaker.
Even if it was said before that this movie, of course, does not reflect the opinion of the European Commission, I think it was a very good decision of the organisers to show this movie at this event!
The auditorium was filled to the last seat and people were eagerly waiting outside to get in even half an hour before it started.

" The Age of Stupid" is a hybrid of animation, documentary and drama:
The Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

In small "flashbacks" the movie shows what already has had happened in year 2008 - and still no action was taken! The great devastation after Hurricane Katrina,melting of the glaciers in the Alps and droughts and fire in the US aswell as in Southern Europe.

Additionally the film follows people from all over the world:
- There is the yound woman from Nigeria, whose life is strongly influenced by the devastation SHELL has left behind when exploiting the oil resources and whose only dream is to become a doctor, a good one,as she stresses.

- There is the young and successful Indian man who started the first Indian low-cost airline in 2005....no matter what people tell about climate change effetcs

- the old man, working as a mountaineering guide in the French Alps, who cannot believe his eyes that his beloved glaciers melt faster from year to year

- the man from New Orleans, struck by Katrina and working on an oil platform

- a sister and brother from Iraq, who fled to Jordan from the war and are deeply traumatized by what they had experienced in their young lifes

- and the British family, who tries to live as sustainable as possible. And the father of the family who sells windmills. Well, rather: he tries to sell windfarms to towns at the windy British countryside and is fought against with all the town inhabitants can find.

A very characterizing situation is shown when a British lady tells the filmers that, of course, she is concerened about climate change and of course she is in favur of renewable energies - but please not in her neighboorhood.

Let this be enough telling -the film is very worth seeing!

At The Age of Stupid you can find more information!

The Green Week day one

2009-06-24T14:44:00.005+03:00

Dear visitors,

As you have read in the post below we are currently at The Green Week in Brussels, where we are spreading CHAMP and attending conferences about climate change. During the first day of The Green Week we got an introduction of what is expected of the Green Week with conferences and workgroups on different levels and with multiple accents. With over 4000 registered participants this years edition set a new record.

Throughout the conferences we notice big expectations for the upcoming COP15 and the hope for a unified response to climate change. Along with the current economical crisis, which will make a climate change mitigation harder. Though if dealt with properly will create prosperity and green jobs hence be a part of the solution to weather this economical storm.

Keep up to date and visit us for an refelction of the second day of The Green Week.

CHAMP AT GREEN WEEK

2009-06-05T13:59:00.005+03:00

The first opportunity to follow the CHAMP project will be at the Green Week where the CHAMP project staff will blogg directly from the Green Week. They will share views of the project by the participants, inform about the event etc.

Welcome to the official CHAMP blog

2009-06-05T09:24:00.003+03:00

Dear visitors,

As most of us know Climate Change is bound to make a great impact and without taking sufficient actions many of us will face severe consequences for the damage done in the past decennia.

In CHAMP seven European organizations combine their strengths and with the support of life+ and Regione Lombardia we established the project in 2009. Our main goal is to deliver competence for local authorities by setting up training hubs throughout Europe. For the moment we have accomplished training hubs in Finland, Germany, Italy and Hungary. With our experience of MUE-25 and the implementation of Integrated Management Systems we intend to contribute to the fight against Climate Change.

In this blog we will update you on the progress we are making and express our ideas about the latest climate change developments.

The CHAMP team.