New approach for managing Holistic EnvironmentaL governance Practices

Introduction

At the end of 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as the guide to achieving inclusive and sustainable development on a global scale. The EU is committed to mainstreaming the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the EU policy framework.

EU Initiatives

Moreover, the Green Deal and the Climate Law are examples of ambitious actions that fit into the UN roadmap. In this frame, cities have been regarded as central to driving the 2030 Agenda, and their crucial role is manifested in a specific Goal addressing Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Challenges

However, more efforts are needed to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development goals by cities. The following challenges are widely envisaged:

1. Lack of environmental objectives in the municipalities' planning instruments.
2. Absence of a link between environmental targets and a system of incentives for policy and decision makers.
3. Difficulties in managing and sharing large amounts of environmental data.
4. Weak organizational culture inside public administration.
5. Weak behavioral and bottom-up culture for citizens.
6. Complexity in communicating environmental data to policy and decision makers and to citizens.

Project Objective

The objective of the LIFE HELP project is to systematize an approach, tested in the city of Rimini but easily replicable at the European level. This approach aims to trigger a shift from a vision characterized by highly fragmented planning, managing, and assessing initiatives to improve environmental targets, towards a holistic approach with long-term and integrated initiatives for sustainability, addressing all the administrative burdens mentioned above.

Implementation

LIFE HELP will implement the following voluntary instruments to contribute to the approach definition and testing:

• The Green City Accord
• The ISO 14001 certification
• The EMAS Registration

Moreover, it will design and test the intuitive environmental WA2NNA-BEST index.