Event Highlights

 European Green Capital Conference
 Community Sustainability Workshops in Mexico: Scroll down.

A delegation of ten mayors and municipal officials from the U.S. participated in the first ever European Green Capital Conference in Stockholm, Sweden October 20-22, 2010. This delegation was made possible through a grant from the US Embassy in Sweden to the Institute for Ecomunicipalities, partnering with the National League of Cities.  Four of the delegates were from US eco-municipalities, where elected officials have made an official commitment to the four sustainability objectives of the American Planning Association, based upon the Natural Step framework for sustainability which originated in Sweden, and who have committed to a participatory, systems approach for implementing these.  The delegates from the four eco-municipalities were Mayor David Cieslewicz of Madison, WI, City Councilor Eric Spear of Portsmouth, NH, Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun of Lawrence Township, NJ, and Mayor Larry MacDonald of Bayfield, WI and the 5-city/town eco-region initiative of Chequamegon Bay, WI.

The other members of the US Delegation were Mayor Sam Adams, Portland, OR, Mayor R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis, MN, Mayor John Marks, Tallahassee, FL, Vice-Mayor Henrietta Davis, Cambridge, MA, City Councilor Matt Appelbaum, Boulder, CO, and Mayor Ron Loveridge, Riverside, CA, also President of the National League of Cities. Mayor Elizabeth Kautz of Burnside, MN and President of the US Conference of Mayors was also present. Organizers of the delegation were Sarah James, Co-Director of the Institute for Eco-municipalities, Ken Rosenfeld, Sustainability Program Director for the National League of Cities, and Tammy Zborel, Senior Associate for NLC’s Sustainability Program. Tom Miller, Chief of Staff for Mayor Adams of Portland, was also present. View video of the US Delegation summarizing their cities’ sustainable development accomplishments.

The purpose of the US Delegation at the Green Capital Conference was to demonstrate to Europe and Scandinavia that there is a substantial amount of sustainable development activity in the US going on at the local level, and for delegates to learn innovative approaches from their European counterparts and bring these back to their municipalities.  Mayor Loveridge, Mayor Kautz, Mayor Cieslewicz, Mayor Rybak, Mayor Marks, and Mayor MacDonald all addressed the Conference Plenary Session, describing their cities’ accomplishments in sustainable development. Delegates participated in conference working sessions during the two day event, took a boat tour to view some of Stockholm’s accomplishments that won it the first European Green Capital Award from the European Union, and attended a celebration dinner hosted by the City of Stockholm in honor of its receipt of the 2010 Green Capital Award. Delegates also participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by the US Embassy, Stockholm with mayors, officials, and staff from several of the Swedish eco-municipalities, trading approaches to such issues as local food production, increasing bike travel, and ways to find agreement on sustainability between conservative and progressive politicians.  Sarah James and Torbjörn Lahti, Directors of IEMEA, designed and facilitated this discussion and SeKom -  the National Association of Swedish Eco-municipalities - organized the participating delegation of Swedish officials and staff.

The last event of the trip was a reception in honor of the delegation at the US Ambassador’s beautiful residence in Stockholm, where Ambassador Matthew Barzun announced the formation of SAGA – the Swedish American Green Alliance – to promote greater interchange between US and Swedish cities and businesses.  The National League of Cities (NLC), the National Association of Swedish Eco-municipalities (SeKom), and the Institute for Eco-municipalities (IEMEA) all signed an agreement to support and promote this alliance in future collaboration.

                                                                                                              

Since the European Green Capital Conference, reactions on both sides of the Atlantic to the US delegations participation has been strongly positive. The Swedish American Green Alliance will be continuing its work to increase connections and interchanges among Swedish and American cities and businesses to promote change toward sustainability. Read media articles and see Web links for delegates' accounts of their experiences at the Green Capital Conference.


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IEMEA Eco-municipality Workshops in Mexico

During the spring of 2010, IEMEA held  workshops in three traditional communities in Mexico – Nuevo Zoquiapam, Oaxaca; Ixtapec, Puebla; and Tequila, Vera Cruz. These communities are among the 100 lowest-income communities in the nation.  Community residents, farmers, and business people took part in day-long workshops where they developed strategies for moving their community and local government more toward sustainability, using sustainability objectives based upon the Natural Step framework as their guiding compass.   Photos of these workshops are below:

                                   

Between 50-75 participants attended each workshop where, after a brief introduction to the sustainability objectives and the reasons for them, they worked in small groups to come up with sustainable strategies such as using rainwater collectors, organizing coffee growers to use sustainable growing practices, and developing tree and plant nurseries to combat species loss.  Other actions included using solar water purifiers, solar and wind power instead of firewood for energy, and switching to ecological toilets and stoves.  

                


This project was initiated by the Mexican national agency SEDESOL, which works with municipalities throughout the country in planning, infrastructure, and social services.  In 2009-2010, IEMEA worked with SEDESOL to help it develop a sustainability action plan for the entire agency. Both of these projects were assisted by the World Bank.

SEDESOL officials and staff work on a sustainability action plan for the Mexican Agency.