The real cup

Gathering hundreds of people together requires careful planning on catering. Well-organized coffee breaks and meals combined with in-between-refreshments are points that shouldn't be overlooked when planning a successful conference. But what is different when the catering should also be environmentally friendly - well, is it possible?

Real cups and glasses, not to mention the other necessary cutlery, napkins and tablecloths are the basic parts of catering for Solutions local, together - Conference. Locally produced food and drinks are also a must. The first contacts to local restaurants and other service providers were made already last year, and the latest one this week. They have all shown real enthusiasm towards the idea of a sustainably organized conference and have also expressed that "Nothing is impossible - just give me a bit of time to find out."

Cups and locally baked bread are the visible signs of environmental thinking. But where do the cups and napkins go after the coffee break is over? Or where was the flour or butter made used by the local bakery? We need to go to the origins when we think about the life-cycle of a product. Therefore the communication all the way through, from beginning to the end, is important for finding out the real carbon footprint. Very few have thought about it yet thoroughly. Are you one of the forerunners?

Disposable cup

On the way to the citizen forum on wind energy, Lucas meets his old friend that he has encouraged to attend the event.His friend lives next to the planned wind energy park and is very concerned about the value of his property if wind park is to be constructed next to it.

In the citizen forum, they meet several like-minded participants, but also many suspicious and even negatively orientated stakeholders. While zipping coffee from the disposable cups and eating imported cookies, the audience gets more and more emotional and starts to defend their own backyard, without thinking about the larger picture. The event finishes without reaching a shared consensus.

Lucas is surprised how little the organizers have thought about the small important elements of the event. As to him, the truth lies behind the details. Would the discussion have been different if fare trade coffee would have been served from real mugs?

From informing to involvement

During the resent years the focus from environmental awareness raising has changed more towards involvement of stakeholders. This means that the skills demanded from the employees of the local authorities are changing. Employees should be able to handle challenging communication, understand the dynamics of involvement and different methods of involvement.

A lot of cities have tested a number of stakeholder involvement methods and some have proven to be good practices in their local surroundings. A good number of these cases, can be found from a Good Practice Database in the Baltic Sea Region . The diversity of topics approached through active involvement is very wide. Nearly everyone of the practices evidence a more effective implementation of the topic developed through an involvement process. This is very important.

Solutions local, together - conference offers you a change to be involved as much as you would like to. Involvement requires an active approach from both sides. At the moment, we are trying to develop different ways for involvement. It will be challenging as the conference has tree languages to work with. If you have good ideas - let us know them.

Involve yourself

Lucas has decided that he will need to be well equipped to participate in the citizen forum on wind energy and sits by his computer. He goes through the search engines and find out that wind energy has been promoted quite widely, but it still has not spread all around the Baltic Sea Region. He wonders why it is so and decides to understand what it needs to get a decisions like this through.

What is the true aim with the citizen forum, is it to inform, influence or decide? Or all of this? Lucas is not sure anymore what kind of possibilities he has in order to enable a more sustainable change to take place. He would like to encourage his friends and relatives to join in, but is afraid that he would mislead them. He calls to the organizers of the forum and they tell him that the forum offers a possibility to discuss and share opinions. Lucas doubts that.

Lucas is convinced that he would have a lot to say and familiarizes himself with information on citizen forums. Luckily he found many good cases about it and feels that with the information gathered he is ready to take part and heads to the citizens forum on wind energy.