Cimate & Sustainability in all political decisions - how to begin ?

Green transition: Moving towards climate and sustainability aspects in all political decisions

By: Willy Feddersen (Chief executive Officer) Charlotte Houlberg (Chief officer of youth & education), Thorbj?rn S?rensen (Chief officer of technical & Environmental issues), Dorte Stage M?lgaard (Head of strategy at youth & education), Morten M. Westergaard (head of Climate & Energy).

All at the Municipality of Middelfart, Denmark.

It is the year 2019. We are at an annual meeting hosted by KL – Local Government Denmark. KL is the association and interest organization for the 98 Danish municipalities. Every attendee at the meeting is a public leader within the technology and environmental sector at the Danish municipalities. One of them asks: “Can you imagine a time in the future when all political decisions will take climate and sustainability aspects into account?”. Most of the public leaders answered “yes”.

Their response is in line with the concern of most citizens. According to polls ([1]), a majority of them worry about the impending climate emergency. However, even though many agree that action is needed, uncertainty on how to complete, or even begin, transformative leadership, often holds real action back.

This is the story about a small municipality in Denmark, the municipality of Middelfart, with 40.000 inhabitants, which decided to walk the talk. It is the story about a municipality that has become one of the first political organizations in the world to make it mandatory to consider climate and sustainability aspects in all political decisions.

The lesson learned is that if you take one step at a time, it is not that difficult to “walk the talk” – even though the journey is long.

The journey begins: Green transition as part of our DNA

The municipality of Middelfart was formed in 2007 as a consequence of a local government reform. From the very beginning the political agenda has been set on supporting the green transition in a short, sharp and action -oriented way. This means that we already have many years of experience on how to bring green, political ambitions to life. We know what science recommends. And we have the citizens on our side; they support our green agenda.  You might say that our aim to support green transition is part of our DNA. This has given the municipality a great track-record in green actions, policies and results, which has placed us among one of the leading climate frontrunner municipalities – from day one.  

Many different welfare issues “battle” to set the local, political agenda – and to win the attention in the political realm. So how did we manage to get a green profile already in 2007? To be honest, even though we also knew back then that climate change is one of the world’s most crucial challenges, it was not the only argument for action. The local politicians also saw economic benefits and an opportunity to strengthen local settlement and attract new inhabitants. Furthermore, at the time it was a fairly unique brand amongst Danish municipalities, which made it possible to be known as a frontrunner – even with modest effort.

These clear, political priorities have also widened the administration’s comfort-zone for climate action and given rise to a curiosity to do better. The civil servants today are also more aware of the value, which comes from green co-creations with local citizens, NGO’s, other public institutions, the industry and academia – as opposed to a more traditional bureaucratic rule-following approach.

To sum it up, the local context is characterized by a clear, political vision and political courage – along with recognition that there is no text-book example on how to do it, and consequently that trust is vital in the relationship between politicians and civil servants.

The journey continues: Step-by-step towards “Climate and sustainability in all political decisions”

During our +10 years of experience with climate action, we have been on a long and instructive journey and adventure. Step-by-step we have made incremental changes and taken concrete actions while our learning curve has been as steep as a Tour de France mountain stage. The step-by-step method has brought us far, but we have also realized that we have to move forward in a greater pace, with greater results, and at a cheaper price, if we are to succeed in our mission. In other words, it has become more apparent than ever that without a massive green transition at an unheard pace, we will never fulfill the Paris Agreement and the aim of keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We all have a massive responsibility to act.

With this recognition we asked ourselves the question once more: So, what’s next? It quickly became apparent to us that a holistic and cross-sectorial approach would be absolutely essential for the next part of our journey and adventure. Until now many climate actions had taken place within the technology and environmental sector. But how do you change a culture and a mindset in a way that makes all sectors embrace the same theme - climate and sustainability? In the following sections we try to show you our steps and actions.

The first step – besides getting the idea to take into consideration climate and sustainability in all political decisions – was a simple desk study to determine out if such an idea would be relevant to implement across all sectors. The simple investigation was conducted by the board of directors. It involved a review of the last 167 political decisions made by our sectoral political committees and city council. We asked the question: “Could the previous decisions, in retrospective, have taken climate and sustainability aspects into consideration?” Of the 167 political decisions, we found that climate and sustainability would have been a relevant aspect to consider in 83 of them.

Another concern for the board of directors, besides relevance, was whether or not the staff would be annoyed, upset or stressed, if they should take climate and sustainability aspects into consideration in their briefing and decision material to the politicians. This raised the question on whether or not such an idea would be possible to implement in practice.

We never made a study to answer that question. With our track record – and backed by all polls in Denmark and the result of the last national election – we felt assured that such a climate action would be received positively by the staff - and make sense.

Nevertheless, as a second step we arranged meetings with all parts of the administration to highlight “how and why we do it”. At the meetings our staff was given an introduction to the changes caused by the new decision, and to the consequences this might entail for their way of working. Our experience was in line with our expectations; the changes were embraced and constructively debated. The staff also acknowledged that there could not be a great master plan, and that it would be by muddling through, being curious and simply having the attitude of Pippi Longstocking that we proceed.  Pippi says: “I have not done this before, so of course I can do it”.

Yet, the whole process is fragile. Questions and uncertainty about how to implement the political decisions will arise. Therefore, to ensure ongoing support and facilitate a “green mind set” across all sectors, we have taken a third step. We have set up a green leadership forum, where all the different sectors within the administration are represented. We call it our “Scout Forum” to emphasize our “learning by doing”-approach and focus on nature.  The participants meet on a regular basis to discuss issues such as “how do we do this?”, “who have good examples to share?, “who can help us?”, “how do we help our colleagues?”, “how do we meet the expectations of the politicians?” etc.

And then last, but not least: The municipality’s mayor is chairman of the forum, and the CEO also attends the meeting.  In other words, we have the top political and administrative level leading the organization in the transformation process with attention, participation and leadership.

Your journey? Some reflective thoughts and learning points

We have mentioned that there is no big text book or manual. Has it been a problem for us? No! The most important thing is clear leadership from the mayor, the city council, and the top level of administration and that the turnaround makes sense for everyone -  some people are almost begging for green leadership and actually choose workplaces with a green company profile.

Our approach is very pragmatic, maybe almost naive, but therefore also very simple to copy.

Do you need a lot of courage to set out on the same journey and adventure? No! The only thing we think you should be concerned about regarding climate and sustainability, is if no one acts on the climate crisis.

Is it a subject that can bring together a city council? Absolutely! Climate and sustainability is a subject that has potential to create strong bonds across political beliefs. In many ways, it empowers politicians by opening debates on how we address climate and sustainability – and since there are no big manuals or textbook examples on how to do it, it calls for political leadership.

Our journey? Contact us to learn more and share ideas

We have shared on story and experiences briefly. Please contact us for further information or to form partnerships regarding green transformation.  We are ready to take new action step-by-step.

[1] https://concito.dk/emne/klimabarometeret