European Partnership on Integrated Urban Sustainability Management launched in June!

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

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

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

Talking about food and climate....

The Livewell diet for a healthier planet

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!

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

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