Commission funds online evaluation tool for local sustainable development
Local authorities will soon be able to easily assess their progress in achieving sustainable development, and compare their performance with the rest of Europe, thanks to a new online evaluation tool developed with funding from the European Commission. Since the establishment of Local Agenda 21 in 1992, and the signing the Aalborg Charter of European cities and towns towards sustainability in 1994, many of Europe's municipalities have put local processes in place for achieving sustainable development. Until now, however, local authorities had no simple method of assessing their performance in a way that was comparable with other towns and cities. Local Evaluation 21 answers this need by providing an online questionnaire, to be filled out by the relevant representative of the local authority, which gauges performance in a number of areas of the sustainable development process. Authorities are also encouraged to register local organisations with a stake in the process too, so that their comments can be incorporated into the final assessment via a slimmed down version of the questionnaire. Once the local authority has completed the questionnaire, which the system's creators say should take no more than 45 minutes, they must wait a maximum of three weeks to receive their final evaluation report. The document analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the city's sustainability process, as well as providing bar chart performance comparisons with other municipalities of a similar population in Europe, and all other local authorities in their country of origin. The consortium that created Local Evaluation 21 first came together for a similar EU funded project called LASALA, and now calls itself LASALA online. One of the consortium members, Professor Bob Evans, from the sustainable cities research centre at Northumbria University, UK, said: 'The purpose of the evaluation is not to judge local authorities, but to give them a tool that helps them to assess their progress and seek out best practices.' Presenting the system at a launch event in Brussels on 21 April, Professor Evans highlighted a number of elements that he believes will make it an invaluable tool for local authorities. Local Evaluation 21 is available in 20 European languages, and can be easily accessed on the Internet. The system is totally free, and all of the individual data provided by local authorities will remain strictly confidential. While developing the system, the consortium sought the input of a number of local authorities from around Europe. One of these was Durham County Council in the UK, represented at the launch event by Maggie Bosanquet. Ms Bosanquet said that for the past decade, her local authority has done a lot in the area of sustainable development, but: 'we were always left with the question: are we doing well?' Having been involved in the previous, off-line LASALA evaluation, Ms Bosanquet said that although the process had been challenging and had taken a long time, receiving a positive assessment of their municipality's performance had been very uplifting, and had helped her to win more support for sustainable development activities from senior decision makers. The online Local Evaluation 21 system, by contrast, is very simple and clear, and takes about 30 minutes to complete, said Ms Bosanquet. She stressed the importance of involving as many external stakeholders as possible: '[This] is very important, as it validates the whole process and creates a very honest assessment.' Vincent Favrel, from the European Commission's Research Directorate-General, explained that the system had been funded through the energy, environment and sustainable development section of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5), under the 'City of tomorrow and cultural heritage' key action. Mr Favrel said that the overarching objective of the key action was to provide the means for local and regional stakeholders to implement sustainable development, and described Local Evaluation 21 as: 'An important first step, allowing local authorities to gauge their current situation and providing them with guidelines for future activities.' Finally, another member of the LASALA online consortium, Marko Joas from the Abo Akademi University in Finland, highlighted the wider research potential of the system. Local Evaluation 21 would be collecting a huge amount of data on sustainable development processes throughout Europe, he said, and this would certainly have research applications. Given the focus on stakeholder involvement, for example, it should be possible to analyse stakeholder attitudes towards local sustainable development strategies at a European, national or regional level, concluded Mr Joas.