Putting sustainable development online Sustainable development is a relatively new concept of the 21st century. It revolves around development that meets today's needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Digital Economy © Shutterstock A powerful database of ideas and projects on sustainable development has helped communities to adopt better living practices and improve the standard of living. The EU-funded project 'Information system for sustainable development for EU and UN-Habitat' aimed to build an online database for local authorities and policymakers. The searchable web-based platform featured all European Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes (FP5, FP6) related to sustainable development. It made use of advanced technology for data storage and information disclosure, offering stakeholders a valuable resource to upgrade sustainability in different communities. The project team worked on selecting, categorising and validating projects from the EU and the UN-Habitat programme related to sustainable urban development. This included a multilingual thesaurus to maximise the benefit for different communities and parts of the world. The system was thoroughly tested and presented at the 2007 Sustainable Cities and Towns conference. Feedback from participants was integrated to fine-tune the project and efforts were made to ensure its continuity. By the end of the project the portal had attracted over 12,000 visits, exceeding the initial target of 10,000. This underlined the importance and usefulness of such an important resource in creating better societies. Although the website is no longer in operation, the idea of such a crucial resource in building better cities can serve future initiatives in this direction and offer a treasure of ideas on sustainability for communities around the globe.
