Final Report Summary - CSOCONTRIBUTION2SCP (Partnering to enhance Civil Society Organisations; contribution to research in sustainable consumption and production)
Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) offer many exciting challenges for the present and the future. In order to reach the goal of shifting towards less environmentally damaging consumption patterns without reductions in the 'quality of life', contributions from and agreement among a variety of economic and societal actors are required - both research and action are needed. In this sense, civil society organisations (CSOs) and research institutions play important roles: CSOs have the unique position to bring a variety of actors together and convince them to take action for more transformational types of change. Research can give important insights to different stakeholders and increase their SCP knowledge base.
The CSOCONTRIBUTION2SCP (also known as 'Action town - research and action for SCP') project focused on enhancing the effectiveness of CSO activities promoting more sustainable consumption and production patterns, and on making better use of the unique contribution that CSOs working in the field of SCP can give to the sustainability research agenda. The project achieved the following:
- Increased involvement of civil society organisations in research:
With the help of three prepared guidelines on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP (disseminated widely), particularly four European CSOs selected to become new project partners had a first tool helping them to gain better knowledge on how to use research outcomes in the above mentioned fields. This was further increased by the bilateral support given by the research institutes to the new CSO partners while conducting small exploratory actions on SCP in their respective countries - Spain; Latvia; Ukraine and Turkey. The specific feedback given also enabled the involved research institutes to better tailor their work towards the need of CSOs.
- Increased contribution of research to sustainable development:
For researchers, the project improved opportunities to understand the research needs of organised civil society in view of their policy and advocacy goals. The research and a survey carried out helped to guide the future research directions in SCP through identification of the knowledge gaps and the needs assessment with CSOs. Both showed the huge need and potential to further investigate how CSOs can become more effective, in order to become real change agents. This led to discussions with a select group of leading CSOs and researchers on how to provide better knowledge and capacity for more effective CSO strategies. On this basis, the so-called smart CSOs initiative was kick-started to sustain the project's objectives: At the project's final conference, there was a commitment of several CSOs and researchers to create a smart CSO hub, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents for a systemic change towards sustainability.
- Creation of partnership between CSOs and research organisations:
Through the occasions created for researchers and CSOs to directly meet, exchange ideas and discuss collaboration options, the project enabled the creation of partnerships between them, promoting long-term opportunities for further development of collaborative relationships. This concerns not only the core and the new project partners themselves, but also the project consortium members and additional stakeholders, such as national research bodies, or the participants of the to-be-set-up smart CSOs hub.
The project coordinator was the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) / Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP, Germany), and the core partners were Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) and World Wildlife Fund WWF-UK. Additionally, four CSO partners (Foundation for Ecology and Development (ECODES), Green Liberty, MAMA-86 and the Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV)) have been acquired in the course of the project.
Project context and objectives:
Some relative decoupling of economic growth from materials and energy consumption has been achieved in many EU countries during the past decade. However, this did not lead to an absolute decrease in environmental pressures, because absolute resource use has generally remained steady over the past two decades. Moreover, due to the 'rebound effect', it is unlikely that resource use can be reduced by technological improvements alone. This leads us to the conclusion that current lifestyles and consumption patterns may have to be critically reviewed in order to reach a sustainable society.
In order to reach the goal of shifting towards less environmentally damaging consumption patterns without reductions in the 'quality of life', contributions from and agreement among a variety of economic and societal actors are required. CSOs have the unique position to bring a variety of actors together and convince them to take action for more transformational type of change beyond resource productivity measures. They can encourage concrete sets of goals to drive away from currently unsustainable patterns of consumption. How to enhance the effectiveness of such CSO activities is the core question, guiding the work of the CSOCONTRIBUTION2SCP (also known as 'Action town - research and action for SCP') project.
The overall objective of the project is to make better use of the unique contribution that CSOs working on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) can give to the sustainability research agenda.
Specific objectives corresponding to major phases of the project are as follows:
1)Taking stock and identifying gaps: identify gaps in the knowledge of CSOs on how to shape consumption and production patterns in a sustainable way, and in the research agenda for sustainable consumption and production policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators.
2)Filling the gap: providing new insights to increase CSOs' knowledge base on SCP, and carry out small scale explanatory actions to increase the efficiency of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP.
3)Creating partnership: create partnerships between CSOs and research organizations to foster exchange and dialogue between both groups and to increase involvement of CSOs in research concerning policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP.
Project results:
The main results of the project are summarised in the following five points:
- State-of-the-art documents available online: CSCP, SEI and SERI have each carried out the work on the contents of their respective state-of-the-art documents (policy instruments for CSOs, impact assessment tools, indicators for SCP). The final structure and form have resulted from collaboration between the three institutes. Slight updates have resulted from the support workshops of February 2010.
- Survey report published and available online: The report provides a rich overview of the range of projects and strategies CSOs are undertaking in different European countries and improves the understanding about common research needs and gaps.
- Four CSOs chosen as NFPs: The following organisations were selected as national focal points: ECODES (Spain); Green Liberty (Latvia); Mama-86 (Ukraine); TTGV (Turkey).
- Assessment seminar related to the survey work and the orientation seminar for the national focal points (NFPs): These workshops were organised in March 2009 within the framework of the 'Dialogue and action for SCP' conference, with 83 participants, representing 19 countries.
- Support workshop organised with NFPs - Initiating and supporting partnerships between CSOs and research organisations: A selected group from civil society organizations working on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) as well as academics and researchers from the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP constructively worked towards the workshop's aim to 'Foster knowledge transfer between CSOs and researchers, particularly looking at four practical CSO projects on SCP' (February 2010).
- Support workshop with CSO leaders and researchers - Discussing more effective CSO strategies: This workshop was organised to bring forward the collaboration between research and civil society to a more strategic level (March 2010).
- Successful implementation of four NFP exploratory actions: indicators for sustainability in financial products by ECODES (Spain); participatory SCP policy assessment by Green Liberty (Latvia); actions towards the encouragement of the development of SCP policies in Turkey among relevant stakeholders; an LCA approach for sustainable housing by TTGV (Turkey); development of an SCP policy in Ukraine by MAMA-86 (Ukraine).
- Final conference: Presentation of the results of the NFP projects, and discussions about the way forward on how to foster more effective CSO strategies (March 2011). Around 100 CSO leaders, researchers and funders from more than 20 different countries were participating.
Additionally, the project offered with the support workshop for leading CSOs and researchers and the final conference the platform to kick-start the so-called smart CSOs initiative, a community of practice consisting of leaders from civil society organisations, academics and funders exploring how CSOs can become stronger change agents towards a sustainable society and economy. There was a commitment of several CSOs and researchers to create a smart CSO hub, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents (and internal champions in their organisations) for transformational changes towards sustainability.
Potential impact:
Regarding the potential impact of this project, the following can be noted:
- Increased involvement of civil society organisations in research: so far, civil society organisations have kept some distance from the research community in the field of sustainable consumption and production because of a lack of understanding of how to use research outcomes. With the help of the prepared guidelines on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP, the NFPs had a first tool helping them to gain better knowledge on how to use research outcomes in the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. This was further increased by the bilateral support given by the research institutes to the NFPs while conducting their small exploratory actions. The specific feedback given by the NFPs enabled the involved research institutes to better tailor their work towards the need of CSOs.
- Increased contribution of research to sustainable development: For researchers, the project improved opportunities to understand the research needs of organised civil society in view of their policy and advocacy goals (particularly in the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP). The research and the survey carried out by the project partners helped to guide the future research directions in SCP through identification of the knowledge gaps and the needs assessment with CSOs. It showed the huge need and potential to further investigate how CSOs can become more effective, in order to become real change agents.
- Creation of partnership between civil society organisations and research organisations: Through the occasions created for researchers and CSOs to directly meet, exchange ideas and discuss collaboration options, the project enabled the creation of partnerships between them, promoting long-term opportunities for further development of collaborative relationships. This concerns not only the core and the new project partners themselves, but also the project consortium members and additional stakeholders, such as national research bodies in the case of the NFPs, or the participants of the to-be-set-up smart CSOs hub, that was kicked-off at the project's final conference.
Wider societal implications:
The core of the project was to establish collaboration between researchers and civil society. It included the aspect of implementation and dissemination of research results as well as induced ideas / recommendations what research should be performed. The engagement with citizens was not a main target but various projects of the national focal points engaged with governments and other policy makers, mainly to disseminate the results of the project. The results of the small scale exploratory actions conducted are especially designed to be taken up by policy makers, especially in the fields of: consumers, culture, customs, employment and social affairs, energy, environment, regional policy, taxation and transport. The results relate to all levels of policy with a slight dominance on national policies, at least in the focal point counties.
Main dissemination activities and exploitation of results
The dissemination of the action town project results and knowledge developed was certainly the core part of this project and constituted an important phase of the project. There were several major points of dissemination:
(1) events organised by the project consortium;
(2) publications;
(3) the project website; and
(4) Efforts of the national focal points.
(1) Events organised by the project consortium:
Four events took place within the project which were organised by the core partners.
An initiating conference 'Dialogue and action platform for SCP' was held in Wuppertal (Germany) from 16 to 18 March 2009. More than 90 representatives from CSOs, research and policy institutions followed the invitation. The conference provided a space for civil society organisations to identify research needs how to influence political decisions on sustainable consumption and production. Therefore it provided information on the relevance of instruments such as EU sustainable development strategy (SDS) and the EU SCP action plan in order to make participation in these kinds of processes more accessible.
The workshop 'Supporting CSOs in the field of sustainable consumption and production' to integrate the selected national focal points into the project was held in Vienna, 1-2 February 2010 and organised by CSCP, SEI and SERI. The workshop aimed at fostering knowledge transfer between CSOs and researchers with a focus on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP. The four practical CSO projects were discussed thorougly. Their activities were supported and in return new insights to research were given.
To foster strategic positioning for CSO in the context of SCP a further workshop was held in Wuppertal, 11-12 March 2010. It was entitled 'Better and new CSO strategies to tackle the sustainable consumption and production challenge?' 20 key experts from academia and civil society discussed the central question of how to use the collective knowledge of leading thinkers from academia and civil society to develop and define an agenda for collaboration between academia and CSOs. They successfully set up working structures to develop strategic leverage points which aim to provide CSOs with better knowledge and capacity for more effective strategies to tackle the global environmental crisis.
Finally, under the lead of WWF-UK the project's final conference took place on 14-15 March 2011 in London under the motto 'Smart CSOs'. Here the consortium convened around 100 CSO leaders and strategists, researchers, academics and funders from more than 20 different countries to debate about the adequateness of current civil society strategies and visions to tackle the global environmental and social crises. The objectives of this conference were twofold:
-First, to present and discuss the results of the four exploratory actions conducted by the project's national focal points to put SCP tools and instruments in practice. Here, the objective was to show what improved difference they are making towards sustainable consumption and production. The discussion forum at the conference was used to discuss the lessons learnt and potential follow-up partnerships and activities.
-Second, to look at and discuss why CSOs should - and how they can - work towards a more holistic and systemic transition to a sustainable society instead of pursuing the narrow technical policy focus of many of today's strategies. As was already shown in the project's survey, in view of the magnitude of the global environmental and social crises and the lack of progress in tackling them, there is a need for civil society organisations to reconsider their strategies in support of a transition to a sustainable society.
-Additionally, a proposal was put on the table to create a smart CSO hub, formed by and representing a network of CSOs and researchers, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents (and internal champions in their organisations) for the great transition. It would act with an external voice mainly in NGO / CSO / funders fora on effective CSO strategies for the great transition. And indeed, the conference ended with the commitment from a number of organisations to create this smart CSOs hub. This development is regarded as a positive outcome of the project, as the project's main objective, fostering the knowledge exchange of CSOs and researchers is going to be continued in the independent, to be set-up hub.
(2) Publications
- Guides for CSOs:
A first set of publications formed guidelines on how actual research insides could enhance the effectiveness of CSOs in the context of SCP. The first focused on policy instruments that can be used to influence and foster positive change towards sustainable consumption and production. The second gave an overview of the variety of tools and methods that have been developed to assess the sustainability performance of various human activities and to communicate and manage environmental and social issues at different organisations. The third provided an overview of selected environmental and social indicators for CSOs to measure sustainable consumption and production. By reviewing existing knowledge and the latest research on SCP, these guidelines aim to provide a quick, hands-on overview of selected public policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. Each guideline gives examples of where CSOs may be able to contribute to more effective or wider implementation of the tools.
The next series of publications considered how to better support CSOs towards strategic approaches for systemic change.
- Survey report: identifying knowledge gaps of CSOs and needs for new insights in SCP:
The purpose of the survey was to identify gaps in the way CSOs work towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in three key focus areas: policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. In parallel, action town partners carried out a review of state of the art research in these areas. The survey provided additional insights with respect to how these instruments have been used in the past and how effectively they are contributing to the overall SCP goals. In addition the survey provided an overview of effective and less effective SCP strategies used by CSOs and to identify other gaps in capacity and knowledge CSOs might have in this field.
The survey report provided the ground for another, additional publication, done in addition to what was promised in the description of work.
- Better and new NGO strategies to tackle the sustainable consumption and production challenge? A road map:
As learned from the project's survey CSOs have well developed skills in analysing and assessing environmental problems, but often lack knowledge and capacity on how to effectively resolve them in terms of understanding the complex functioning of the economic and social systems within which both the problem and the potential solutions exist. On the other hand, academia has long experience in these related areas, but are seldom involved in actively creating and promoting solutions, as well as being somewhat isolated from civil society organisations. What seem to be missing are the capacities and the mechanisms of joining these knowledge areas in order to design tools that can successfully resolve these environmental crises. The publication managed to develop concrete tools to bring the collaboration between research and civil society to the next level and already made some suggestions to a way forward for after the end of action town project.
The insights generated by the survey and the roadmap document, combined with the findings of workshop and the exchange on the ninth platform before the final conference, resulted in another additional publication presenting leverage points for effective change strategies.
- Effective change strategies for the great transition - Five leverage points for civil society organisations:
This publication - presented at the final SCO conference - summarised the need to rethink CSO strategies and introduced the 'Great transition'. As contribution how to reach the great transition it elaborated five leverage points:
- embedding systems thinking in CSO practice;
- a new narrative - how CSOs can work with our cultural values;
- developing new models - how CSOs can support the seeds of the new economy;
- a new global movement - from fragmentation to cross-sectoral collaboration;
- engaging with funders in CSO strategies towards the great transition.
Last but not least, a policy paper has been prepared:
- 'Sustainability for all'. As a contribution to the international SCP process, in particular to the Marrakech process, action town project partners published a position paper for the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session of May 2010. ANPED and the action town NFP partners MAMA-86 and Green Liberty prepared the position paper to call for sustainability for all. The paper is available in three of five UN languages: English, French and Russian.
(3) Project website
The project website (see http://www.action-town.eu online) and an internal communication platform have been fully delivered. Design and the structure of the website have been discussed with all partners. The website includes a full documentation of all project activities of the core partners and related events (such as podcasts that explain the key messages of the NFP's exploratory actions and about the project itself). Regarding the activities of the national focal points it contains contributions in English, and refers to their specific activities in national language to the Focal points own websites.
Additionally, the website contains content related information that goes beyond the project's own activities (e.g. a collection of links, related events or information about other CSOs)
(4) Efforts of the NFPs
The new CSO project partners played a key role in dissemination on the national level and acting as NFPs. Beyond reaching out to academic rounds and other types of civil societies, they also delivered the project news to a wider audience. They provided public policy feedback to their respective national governments by publishing strategy papers in national language to advocate the development of national action plans for SCP.
In time with the signing of contracts with the NFPs ANPED and CSCP developed a detailed dissemination plan for the results of the project. They set up a matrix containing all deliverables as well as additional respectively sub-aspects of the deliverables:
-strategy papers by NFPs in national language to advocate the development of national action plans for SCP;
-translation of key project research activities;
-scientific dissemination of project results in their own and neighbor countries;
-contribution to national research agendas;
-contribution to international research agendas;
-common position papers for international public policy processes: contribution to international SCP processes;
-PodCasts (presented on partners websites as well as partly action town website);
-collaboration agreement between focal points and (national) research institutes;
-matchmaking with new (external) CSO's.
These activities all contributed to supporting the objectives of the project.
For scientific outreach, the project partners will continue to address scientific institutions to integrate CSO perspectives in running research projects wherever feasible. A major tool to help sustain the projects outcomes and objectives is the smart CSO initiative that will be carried further after the end of the project.
Against this background, it is hoped that the consortium will explore other funding opportunities to expand on the lessons learnt from the project.
The CSOCONTRIBUTION2SCP (also known as 'Action town - research and action for SCP') project focused on enhancing the effectiveness of CSO activities promoting more sustainable consumption and production patterns, and on making better use of the unique contribution that CSOs working in the field of SCP can give to the sustainability research agenda. The project achieved the following:
- Increased involvement of civil society organisations in research:
With the help of three prepared guidelines on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP (disseminated widely), particularly four European CSOs selected to become new project partners had a first tool helping them to gain better knowledge on how to use research outcomes in the above mentioned fields. This was further increased by the bilateral support given by the research institutes to the new CSO partners while conducting small exploratory actions on SCP in their respective countries - Spain; Latvia; Ukraine and Turkey. The specific feedback given also enabled the involved research institutes to better tailor their work towards the need of CSOs.
- Increased contribution of research to sustainable development:
For researchers, the project improved opportunities to understand the research needs of organised civil society in view of their policy and advocacy goals. The research and a survey carried out helped to guide the future research directions in SCP through identification of the knowledge gaps and the needs assessment with CSOs. Both showed the huge need and potential to further investigate how CSOs can become more effective, in order to become real change agents. This led to discussions with a select group of leading CSOs and researchers on how to provide better knowledge and capacity for more effective CSO strategies. On this basis, the so-called smart CSOs initiative was kick-started to sustain the project's objectives: At the project's final conference, there was a commitment of several CSOs and researchers to create a smart CSO hub, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents for a systemic change towards sustainability.
- Creation of partnership between CSOs and research organisations:
Through the occasions created for researchers and CSOs to directly meet, exchange ideas and discuss collaboration options, the project enabled the creation of partnerships between them, promoting long-term opportunities for further development of collaborative relationships. This concerns not only the core and the new project partners themselves, but also the project consortium members and additional stakeholders, such as national research bodies, or the participants of the to-be-set-up smart CSOs hub.
The project coordinator was the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) / Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP, Germany), and the core partners were Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) and World Wildlife Fund WWF-UK. Additionally, four CSO partners (Foundation for Ecology and Development (ECODES), Green Liberty, MAMA-86 and the Technology Development Foundation of Turkey (TTGV)) have been acquired in the course of the project.
Project context and objectives:
Some relative decoupling of economic growth from materials and energy consumption has been achieved in many EU countries during the past decade. However, this did not lead to an absolute decrease in environmental pressures, because absolute resource use has generally remained steady over the past two decades. Moreover, due to the 'rebound effect', it is unlikely that resource use can be reduced by technological improvements alone. This leads us to the conclusion that current lifestyles and consumption patterns may have to be critically reviewed in order to reach a sustainable society.
In order to reach the goal of shifting towards less environmentally damaging consumption patterns without reductions in the 'quality of life', contributions from and agreement among a variety of economic and societal actors are required. CSOs have the unique position to bring a variety of actors together and convince them to take action for more transformational type of change beyond resource productivity measures. They can encourage concrete sets of goals to drive away from currently unsustainable patterns of consumption. How to enhance the effectiveness of such CSO activities is the core question, guiding the work of the CSOCONTRIBUTION2SCP (also known as 'Action town - research and action for SCP') project.
The overall objective of the project is to make better use of the unique contribution that CSOs working on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) can give to the sustainability research agenda.
Specific objectives corresponding to major phases of the project are as follows:
1)Taking stock and identifying gaps: identify gaps in the knowledge of CSOs on how to shape consumption and production patterns in a sustainable way, and in the research agenda for sustainable consumption and production policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators.
2)Filling the gap: providing new insights to increase CSOs' knowledge base on SCP, and carry out small scale explanatory actions to increase the efficiency of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP.
3)Creating partnership: create partnerships between CSOs and research organizations to foster exchange and dialogue between both groups and to increase involvement of CSOs in research concerning policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP.
Project results:
The main results of the project are summarised in the following five points:
- State-of-the-art documents available online: CSCP, SEI and SERI have each carried out the work on the contents of their respective state-of-the-art documents (policy instruments for CSOs, impact assessment tools, indicators for SCP). The final structure and form have resulted from collaboration between the three institutes. Slight updates have resulted from the support workshops of February 2010.
- Survey report published and available online: The report provides a rich overview of the range of projects and strategies CSOs are undertaking in different European countries and improves the understanding about common research needs and gaps.
- Four CSOs chosen as NFPs: The following organisations were selected as national focal points: ECODES (Spain); Green Liberty (Latvia); Mama-86 (Ukraine); TTGV (Turkey).
- Assessment seminar related to the survey work and the orientation seminar for the national focal points (NFPs): These workshops were organised in March 2009 within the framework of the 'Dialogue and action for SCP' conference, with 83 participants, representing 19 countries.
- Support workshop organised with NFPs - Initiating and supporting partnerships between CSOs and research organisations: A selected group from civil society organizations working on sustainable consumption and production (SCP) as well as academics and researchers from the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP constructively worked towards the workshop's aim to 'Foster knowledge transfer between CSOs and researchers, particularly looking at four practical CSO projects on SCP' (February 2010).
- Support workshop with CSO leaders and researchers - Discussing more effective CSO strategies: This workshop was organised to bring forward the collaboration between research and civil society to a more strategic level (March 2010).
- Successful implementation of four NFP exploratory actions: indicators for sustainability in financial products by ECODES (Spain); participatory SCP policy assessment by Green Liberty (Latvia); actions towards the encouragement of the development of SCP policies in Turkey among relevant stakeholders; an LCA approach for sustainable housing by TTGV (Turkey); development of an SCP policy in Ukraine by MAMA-86 (Ukraine).
- Final conference: Presentation of the results of the NFP projects, and discussions about the way forward on how to foster more effective CSO strategies (March 2011). Around 100 CSO leaders, researchers and funders from more than 20 different countries were participating.
Additionally, the project offered with the support workshop for leading CSOs and researchers and the final conference the platform to kick-start the so-called smart CSOs initiative, a community of practice consisting of leaders from civil society organisations, academics and funders exploring how CSOs can become stronger change agents towards a sustainable society and economy. There was a commitment of several CSOs and researchers to create a smart CSO hub, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents (and internal champions in their organisations) for transformational changes towards sustainability.
Potential impact:
Regarding the potential impact of this project, the following can be noted:
- Increased involvement of civil society organisations in research: so far, civil society organisations have kept some distance from the research community in the field of sustainable consumption and production because of a lack of understanding of how to use research outcomes. With the help of the prepared guidelines on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP, the NFPs had a first tool helping them to gain better knowledge on how to use research outcomes in the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. This was further increased by the bilateral support given by the research institutes to the NFPs while conducting their small exploratory actions. The specific feedback given by the NFPs enabled the involved research institutes to better tailor their work towards the need of CSOs.
- Increased contribution of research to sustainable development: For researchers, the project improved opportunities to understand the research needs of organised civil society in view of their policy and advocacy goals (particularly in the field of policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP). The research and the survey carried out by the project partners helped to guide the future research directions in SCP through identification of the knowledge gaps and the needs assessment with CSOs. It showed the huge need and potential to further investigate how CSOs can become more effective, in order to become real change agents.
- Creation of partnership between civil society organisations and research organisations: Through the occasions created for researchers and CSOs to directly meet, exchange ideas and discuss collaboration options, the project enabled the creation of partnerships between them, promoting long-term opportunities for further development of collaborative relationships. This concerns not only the core and the new project partners themselves, but also the project consortium members and additional stakeholders, such as national research bodies in the case of the NFPs, or the participants of the to-be-set-up smart CSOs hub, that was kicked-off at the project's final conference.
Wider societal implications:
The core of the project was to establish collaboration between researchers and civil society. It included the aspect of implementation and dissemination of research results as well as induced ideas / recommendations what research should be performed. The engagement with citizens was not a main target but various projects of the national focal points engaged with governments and other policy makers, mainly to disseminate the results of the project. The results of the small scale exploratory actions conducted are especially designed to be taken up by policy makers, especially in the fields of: consumers, culture, customs, employment and social affairs, energy, environment, regional policy, taxation and transport. The results relate to all levels of policy with a slight dominance on national policies, at least in the focal point counties.
Main dissemination activities and exploitation of results
The dissemination of the action town project results and knowledge developed was certainly the core part of this project and constituted an important phase of the project. There were several major points of dissemination:
(1) events organised by the project consortium;
(2) publications;
(3) the project website; and
(4) Efforts of the national focal points.
(1) Events organised by the project consortium:
Four events took place within the project which were organised by the core partners.
An initiating conference 'Dialogue and action platform for SCP' was held in Wuppertal (Germany) from 16 to 18 March 2009. More than 90 representatives from CSOs, research and policy institutions followed the invitation. The conference provided a space for civil society organisations to identify research needs how to influence political decisions on sustainable consumption and production. Therefore it provided information on the relevance of instruments such as EU sustainable development strategy (SDS) and the EU SCP action plan in order to make participation in these kinds of processes more accessible.
The workshop 'Supporting CSOs in the field of sustainable consumption and production' to integrate the selected national focal points into the project was held in Vienna, 1-2 February 2010 and organised by CSCP, SEI and SERI. The workshop aimed at fostering knowledge transfer between CSOs and researchers with a focus on policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators for SCP. The four practical CSO projects were discussed thorougly. Their activities were supported and in return new insights to research were given.
To foster strategic positioning for CSO in the context of SCP a further workshop was held in Wuppertal, 11-12 March 2010. It was entitled 'Better and new CSO strategies to tackle the sustainable consumption and production challenge?' 20 key experts from academia and civil society discussed the central question of how to use the collective knowledge of leading thinkers from academia and civil society to develop and define an agenda for collaboration between academia and CSOs. They successfully set up working structures to develop strategic leverage points which aim to provide CSOs with better knowledge and capacity for more effective strategies to tackle the global environmental crisis.
Finally, under the lead of WWF-UK the project's final conference took place on 14-15 March 2011 in London under the motto 'Smart CSOs'. Here the consortium convened around 100 CSO leaders and strategists, researchers, academics and funders from more than 20 different countries to debate about the adequateness of current civil society strategies and visions to tackle the global environmental and social crises. The objectives of this conference were twofold:
-First, to present and discuss the results of the four exploratory actions conducted by the project's national focal points to put SCP tools and instruments in practice. Here, the objective was to show what improved difference they are making towards sustainable consumption and production. The discussion forum at the conference was used to discuss the lessons learnt and potential follow-up partnerships and activities.
-Second, to look at and discuss why CSOs should - and how they can - work towards a more holistic and systemic transition to a sustainable society instead of pursuing the narrow technical policy focus of many of today's strategies. As was already shown in the project's survey, in view of the magnitude of the global environmental and social crises and the lack of progress in tackling them, there is a need for civil society organisations to reconsider their strategies in support of a transition to a sustainable society.
-Additionally, a proposal was put on the table to create a smart CSO hub, formed by and representing a network of CSOs and researchers, which would foster the development of a community of practice of CSO leaders, funders and researchers who are committed to become stronger change agents (and internal champions in their organisations) for the great transition. It would act with an external voice mainly in NGO / CSO / funders fora on effective CSO strategies for the great transition. And indeed, the conference ended with the commitment from a number of organisations to create this smart CSOs hub. This development is regarded as a positive outcome of the project, as the project's main objective, fostering the knowledge exchange of CSOs and researchers is going to be continued in the independent, to be set-up hub.
(2) Publications
- Guides for CSOs:
A first set of publications formed guidelines on how actual research insides could enhance the effectiveness of CSOs in the context of SCP. The first focused on policy instruments that can be used to influence and foster positive change towards sustainable consumption and production. The second gave an overview of the variety of tools and methods that have been developed to assess the sustainability performance of various human activities and to communicate and manage environmental and social issues at different organisations. The third provided an overview of selected environmental and social indicators for CSOs to measure sustainable consumption and production. By reviewing existing knowledge and the latest research on SCP, these guidelines aim to provide a quick, hands-on overview of selected public policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. Each guideline gives examples of where CSOs may be able to contribute to more effective or wider implementation of the tools.
The next series of publications considered how to better support CSOs towards strategic approaches for systemic change.
- Survey report: identifying knowledge gaps of CSOs and needs for new insights in SCP:
The purpose of the survey was to identify gaps in the way CSOs work towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in three key focus areas: policy instruments, assessment tools and indicators. In parallel, action town partners carried out a review of state of the art research in these areas. The survey provided additional insights with respect to how these instruments have been used in the past and how effectively they are contributing to the overall SCP goals. In addition the survey provided an overview of effective and less effective SCP strategies used by CSOs and to identify other gaps in capacity and knowledge CSOs might have in this field.
The survey report provided the ground for another, additional publication, done in addition to what was promised in the description of work.
- Better and new NGO strategies to tackle the sustainable consumption and production challenge? A road map:
As learned from the project's survey CSOs have well developed skills in analysing and assessing environmental problems, but often lack knowledge and capacity on how to effectively resolve them in terms of understanding the complex functioning of the economic and social systems within which both the problem and the potential solutions exist. On the other hand, academia has long experience in these related areas, but are seldom involved in actively creating and promoting solutions, as well as being somewhat isolated from civil society organisations. What seem to be missing are the capacities and the mechanisms of joining these knowledge areas in order to design tools that can successfully resolve these environmental crises. The publication managed to develop concrete tools to bring the collaboration between research and civil society to the next level and already made some suggestions to a way forward for after the end of action town project.
The insights generated by the survey and the roadmap document, combined with the findings of workshop and the exchange on the ninth platform before the final conference, resulted in another additional publication presenting leverage points for effective change strategies.
- Effective change strategies for the great transition - Five leverage points for civil society organisations:
This publication - presented at the final SCO conference - summarised the need to rethink CSO strategies and introduced the 'Great transition'. As contribution how to reach the great transition it elaborated five leverage points:
- embedding systems thinking in CSO practice;
- a new narrative - how CSOs can work with our cultural values;
- developing new models - how CSOs can support the seeds of the new economy;
- a new global movement - from fragmentation to cross-sectoral collaboration;
- engaging with funders in CSO strategies towards the great transition.
Last but not least, a policy paper has been prepared:
- 'Sustainability for all'. As a contribution to the international SCP process, in particular to the Marrakech process, action town project partners published a position paper for the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) session of May 2010. ANPED and the action town NFP partners MAMA-86 and Green Liberty prepared the position paper to call for sustainability for all. The paper is available in three of five UN languages: English, French and Russian.
(3) Project website
The project website (see http://www.action-town.eu online) and an internal communication platform have been fully delivered. Design and the structure of the website have been discussed with all partners. The website includes a full documentation of all project activities of the core partners and related events (such as podcasts that explain the key messages of the NFP's exploratory actions and about the project itself). Regarding the activities of the national focal points it contains contributions in English, and refers to their specific activities in national language to the Focal points own websites.
Additionally, the website contains content related information that goes beyond the project's own activities (e.g. a collection of links, related events or information about other CSOs)
(4) Efforts of the NFPs
The new CSO project partners played a key role in dissemination on the national level and acting as NFPs. Beyond reaching out to academic rounds and other types of civil societies, they also delivered the project news to a wider audience. They provided public policy feedback to their respective national governments by publishing strategy papers in national language to advocate the development of national action plans for SCP.
In time with the signing of contracts with the NFPs ANPED and CSCP developed a detailed dissemination plan for the results of the project. They set up a matrix containing all deliverables as well as additional respectively sub-aspects of the deliverables:
-strategy papers by NFPs in national language to advocate the development of national action plans for SCP;
-translation of key project research activities;
-scientific dissemination of project results in their own and neighbor countries;
-contribution to national research agendas;
-contribution to international research agendas;
-common position papers for international public policy processes: contribution to international SCP processes;
-PodCasts (presented on partners websites as well as partly action town website);
-collaboration agreement between focal points and (national) research institutes;
-matchmaking with new (external) CSO's.
These activities all contributed to supporting the objectives of the project.
For scientific outreach, the project partners will continue to address scientific institutions to integrate CSO perspectives in running research projects wherever feasible. A major tool to help sustain the projects outcomes and objectives is the smart CSO initiative that will be carried further after the end of the project.
Against this background, it is hoped that the consortium will explore other funding opportunities to expand on the lessons learnt from the project.