URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigrationurmi.fi/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Joas_WP2_sustainability... · 11/27/2016 URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigration - WP 2 -

11/27/2016 URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigration - WP 2 -

Sustainability

1

Marko Joas

Åbo Akademi

[email protected]

Kestääkö kauan? -

URMI-seminaari asiantuntijoille kaupunkien

kestävän kehityksen benchmarkkauksesta Cafe Köket (Aleksanterinkatu 28, Helsinki)

URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigration

Kaupungistunut Suomi 2039

Academy of Finland / The Strategic Research Council

Call: Urbanising Society (2016–2019)


Sustainability

2

• (Urban) sustainability – An interdisciplinary

concept searching for support to local

governments?

• Informed Cities – Why and how to use policy

tools for local governments in Europe.

• Selected sustainability tools for local

governments in Europe and in Finland.

• Covenant of Mayors as a policy tool – To what

extent do local governments commit themselves

to CoM?

• What or why NOT in Finland?

• We are forerunners, but why don’t we show it to

others?

Contents – Kestääkö kauan?


Sustainability

3

Defining urban sustainability

Joas & Theobald 2014

• ...is NOT an easy task!

• Dating back to 1970’s the concept of Sustainability/Sustainable

Development has gradually been built up as an interdisciplinar

concept.

• The political definition was given by WCED/Brundtland-commission

in 1987 (Our Common Future), the responsibility for this work as

well as the indicator based monitoring has been developed further

trough UN Agenda21-process and now Agenda 2030, as well as

national processes.

• Intensive, supported process for (local/urban) sustainability within

EU; Aalborg Commitments/Charter 1994, Leipzig Charter 2007 and

on-going network activities trough several organisations as ICLEI,

UBC…

• The traditional definition includes ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC

and SOCIAL (incl. health and cultural) sustainability.

• However, each one of these issues are highly complex as such.

• A context based implementation is only possibility to get broad

acceptance to the sustainability goal!

• Broad acceptance requires also process goals (as a

participatory approach) in order to reach legitimacy!


Sustainability

4

Understanding knowledge

brokerage for urban sustainability

Joas & Theobald 2014

‘Knowledge brokerage has become a strong driver in

current sustainability discourses, with a body of literature in

multiple scientific areas that is promoting the importance of

knowledge sharing and transfer as a way of breaking down

barriers that impede interaction, healthy communication and

collaboration.’ (Sheate and Partidário 2010: 278)

• Politics – democracy – as a decision-making system is based

on values as guiding principle, not always good?

• Complex world, complex issues are not very easy to discuss

through values – or they are easily simplified much too much.

• The level of decision-making, i.e. local government level, does

not make issues more simple.

• (Urban) Sustainability is a highly complex, interdisciplinary

issue and concept that clearly needs knowledge based

evidence for decision-making, support from multiple actors to

help decision-makers:


Sustainability

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UN Sustainability Agenda 2030 –

A state of the art in Finland?

Source: Lyytimäki et al (2016), Agenda 2030 Suomessa: Kestävän kehityksen avainkysymykset ja indikaattorit,

Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 31/2016


Sustainability

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UN Agenda 2030 indicators

and Finland 1 - 8

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Sustainability

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UN Agenda 2030 indicators

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Sustainability

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Measuring sustainability 1 (env.)




Sustainability

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Measuring sustainability 2

(broad)




Sustainability

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Measuring sustainability 3 (comp.)



• UN Agenda 2030 – Challenges for local governments in Finland

can be traced in the indicators:

• A number of indicators that are problematic for Finland are clearly

issues that are handled first and foremost on national level (even

though they are based on individual behaviour), some indicators

are clearly also local issues that can also be handled trough local

government action.

• Selected ’problem’ indicators that can be handled also at local

government level (yellow = further action needed, red = far away

from goal):

• Health indicators (Doctors/BMI) LG to Regional responsibility

• Homicides (per pop.) LGs resp. in planning, psych. health support

• CO2 emissions/GDP, PPP (tCO2)

• CO2 emissions per capita (tCO2/capita) LG planning/traffic etc.

• Municipal Waste Recycled LG resp. (NEW DATA BETTER?)


Sustainability

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UN Sustainability Agenda 2030 –

Challenges for local governments?




Sustainability

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What kind of tools are there?

A typology of sustainability policy tools:

• Policy support tools: Tools that help (local) governments to politically commit into long term

sustainability processes (declarations, commitments).

• Process guides: Tools to manage a project or policy on sustainability: a) which phases to go

through, b) how to involve stakeholders, c) types of tools to use and d) how to analyse the

situation (frameworks, assessments, strategies and checklists).

• Calculation tools: Tools for calculating the environmental outcome from different solutions,

products or procedures (Life Cycle Analysis, economic and social evaluation tools, system

simulation tools).

• Assessment methods: Tools to weight different aspects of sustainability (environmental,

economic and social) to illustrate differences of priorities between different solutions (multi-

criteria assessment tools, evaluation procedures, surveys and public discussions).

• Monitoring tools: Tools for the selection of indicators and benchmarks for monitoring and

policy formulation on sustainability, including green accounts.

Source: Further developed from McGuinnes (2014), Jensen and Elle (2007)


Sustainability

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Why do European cities use

sustainability policy tools?

• Data from PRIMUS / Informed Cities Research Project 2009-2013:

• A number of reasons for using tools emerged from the Informed

Cities Workshops and Fora. These included:

1. To support decision making and strategy development at local level;

2. To assist with benchmarking, monitoring and evaluation of progress;

3. As part of a longitudinal monitoring process (e.g. annual review of

progress);

4. To secure a ‘green’ badge or other form of sustainability

accreditation;

5. Due to requirements under national or international

guidelines/initiatives.

Source: Joas et al: Informed Cities Making research work for local sustainability (Earthscan/Routledge 2014)


Sustainability

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A selection of tools

Overview of urban sustainability monitoring tools in Europe

Covenant of

Mayors

European

Green Capital

Award

European Green City

Index

European Green Leaf

Local

Evaluation 21

Reference

Framework for

Sustainable

Cities

Urban

Ecosystem

Europe

Year of establishment

2008 2008 2009 2015 2004 2008 2006

Affiliated consortium

European

Commission

European

Commission

Siemens European

Commission

ICLEI CEMR,

CEREMA,

FNAU, French

Ministry of

Housing and SD

Ambiente

Italia

Application of tool

Continuous Continuous 2009 Continuous 2005, 2010 Continuous 2006, 2007, 2010

Number of local governments that have applied

> 6000 Ca 100 30 8 Ca 150 Ca 100 Ca 70

Sam Grönholm 2016


Sustainability

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Covenant of Mayors – What kind

of policy tool?

• Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy was introduced in

2008, as one outcome of the 2020 EU Climate and Energy

Package.

• European Commission launched CoM to endorse and support

the efforts deployed by local authorities in the implementation

of sustainable energy policies.

• Aim of CoM is CO2/GHG reduction and support the integration

of mitigation and adaptation to climate change at a local level.

• Still supported by European Union/Commission financially, a

small secretariat in Brussels.

• What kind of a tool? A Policy network based tool that that

gives a) policy support for long term commitment, and b)

includes also some monitoring elements (follow-up on the

commitments).

• The main part is though the statement of a political will to work

(together) for local climate policies.


Sustainability

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Covenant of Mayors – We, the

Mayors….

... Source: www.eumayors.eu/index_en.html


Sustainability

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Covenant of Mayors – Participants

in Europe and abroad

6328 Signatories

5589 Action plans

1181 Monitoring

reports

4067 Benchmarks

(best cases)

Source: www.eumayors.eu/index_en.html

CoM and local governments in selected

countries

• All in all over 6000 signatories in EU and also other countries

• The signatories (2016) of the Covenant of Mayors by countries,

with total number of inhabitants covered by the project

Country Nr. of Signatories Population covered

Denmark 38 ca 3,3 mill (63%)

Estonia 3 ca 435.000 (34%)

Finland 11 ca 2,1 mill (41%)

Italy 3771 ca 40,5 mill (69%)

Latvia 20 ca 1,1 mill (51%)

Lithuania 15 ca 1,4 mill (43%)

Norway 8 ca 1,3 mill (31%)

Spain 1713 ca 28,6 mill (65%)

Sweden 57 ca 4,3 mill (49%)


Sustainability

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Sustainability

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Users in Finland

Overview of urban sustainability monitoring tools in Europe

Covenant of

Mayors

European

Green Capital

Award

European Green City

Index

European Green Leaf

Local

Evaluation 21

Reference

Framework for

Sustainable

Cities

Urban

Ecosystem

Europe

Year of establishment

2008 2008 2009 2015 2004 2008 2006

Affiliated consortium

European

Commission

European

Commission

Siemens European

Commission

ICLEI CEMR,

CEREMA,

FNAU, France

Ambiente

Italia

Number of local governments that have applied

> 6000 Ca 100 30 8 Ca 150 Ca 100 Ca 70

Local governments (> 100 000 inhabitants)

8/ Espoo, Helsinki, Jyväskyla,

Lahti Tampere, Turku, Oulu,

Vantaa

4 / Espoo, Helsinki, Lahti,

Tampere

1 / Helsinki

0

2 / Helsinki, Vantaa

3 / Espoo, Helsinki, Lahti

(participated in the testing phase)

4 / Helsinki, Tampere, Turku,

Vantaa

Local governments (20 000 – 100 000 inhabitants)

3 / Kainuu region, Joensuu, Vaasa

0

0

1 / Kuopio

0

1 / Kuopio

Sa

m G

rönh

olm

201

6


Sustainability

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HINKU – A national approach

Source: http://www.hinku-foorumi.fi/en-

US

• A national based tool to support LG

commitment to carbon neutral society.

• Start 2008 with 5 LGs committing

themselves to green house gas

reductions (15% by 2016, 80% by 2030)

and a certain process to do this work.

• Follow up by HINKU network (coordinated

by Finnish Environment Centre/SYKE

with partners).

• The tool pack includes also other type of

tools, as for example information

packages to involve other local actors.

• By 11/2016 all in all 34 Local

Governments in the network (committed),

and an additional 33 companies and

organisations.

• Mid-sized or smaller LGs with all in all

646900 inh. (approx. 12%).


Sustainability

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Case Helsinki in an international

indicator comparison

Source: Cornier T in Int. J. Environment and Sustainable Development, 2012 (Vol. 11,

No. 1).

• A indicator based comparative study of 53 (+400 000 inh.) EU Cities

(2012):


Sustainability

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No. 1).


Sustainability

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No. 1).

• Not best possible way to measure sustainable development,

but this takes into account both progress (quantitative) as

well as process (in qualitative indicators).

• This tells also a story on our strengths and weaknesses

(besides the climate...).

• Results pointing towards the same direction also in my own

research (for example Evans, Joas, Sundback, Theobald: Governing Sustainable

Cities, Earthscan 2005).

• What can we learn...?

Conclusions – Back to the Fano

guidelines for LGs?

• 1. Learning as an

organization

• 2. Moving away from

'policy silos' within local

government

• 3. Making alliances with

people and organisations

• 4. Facilitating the process

and developing credible

leadership

• 5. Encouraging creativity

and innovation in policy-

making


Sustainability

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• 6. Communicating to

make a difference

• 7. Catalysing action

through raising

environmental

awareness

• 8. Maintaining

commitment to

achieving the long-

term vision

• 9. Sharing experience

with peers

• 10. Influencing all

levels of government Based on DISCUS Research / Governing Sustainable Cities 2005

The way forward – our research

questions in URMI WP 2 -

Sustainability

• Four main focus:

– 1) WP 2.1 Urban sustainability policies and

practices in Finland and Europe (ÅAU) Survey

to support WP2 Spring 2017

– 2) WP 2.2 Resource efficiency of current and

future urban infrastructure in Finland (TUT)

– 3) WP 2.3 Specific local interventions on

sustainability (TAL with UTU)

– 4) WP 2.4 Socially sustainable urban development

(IMI with THL)


Sustainability

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Sustainability

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Earlier research on sustainable cities

• ‘…[T]hose local governments who show the widest range and greatest intensity of achievement are

also those who have recognized their central role in promoting and taking action on sustainable

development issues. These local governments are setting the agenda and acting proactively in

establishing and maintaining partnerships and alliances both within the local authority itself and

with external organizations. Local government may be able to achieve change on its own.’

• Excerpt from: Evans, B., M. Joas, S. Sundback & K. Theobald, Institutional and Social Capacity Enhancement for Local Sustainable

Development: Lessons learnt from European urban settings, in Baker, S. and K. Eckerberg, In Pursuit of Sustainable Development

New governance practices at the sub-national level in Europe, Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science, Oxon 2008,

pp. 74-96.

Thank You!

Earthscan/Routledge 2013

Earthscan 2005

These book are also

main sources to the

presentation if not

otherwise indicated.

Documents

URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigrationurmi.fi/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Joas_WP2_sustainability... · 11/27/2016 URMI: Urbanization, Mobilities and Immigration - WP 2 -