The importance of cooperation

'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?

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

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.

CHAMP in Italy: successful trainings on IMS!

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?