In general we can conclude that it pays to involve your community in setting up and executing your energy policy and action plan. The municipalities and regions which have participated in the Innovative Thinking project have benefitted from this as can be read in the Innovative Thinking booklet en throughout this final report. Municipalities and regions have a specific role to play in the process towards more sustainability.
Municipalities and regions however can not be held responsible for all the results that have to be achieved. Most of the results have to be achieved by other parties such as contractors, housing corporations, industry, individual household’s etcetera. Community involvement is therefore a necessity.
Contracts and other written agreements as used in the Innovative Thinking project are very helpful in this regard. Good examples can be found in the UK were the Stroud Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) Climate Change Declaration proved beneficial for the involvement of the wider community.
These partnerships and other partnerships in different project partners regions and municipalities generate more funding for achieving actual results. As can be seen in the community of Ávila Spain. Where collaboration with various stakeholders resulted in the refurbishing of public lighting.
Communication is crucial in community involvement. Communication is a constant. During the Innovative Thinking project we found that creating community involvement takes a lot of communication on various levels. Meetings,newspaper articles, excursions, conferences, websites etcetera. Once the involvement is established the level of communication has to be kept up. Otherwise involvement evaporates.
Download the Booklet 'Lessons learned' - 64 pages with experience, good examples and ideas from the Innovative Thinking project, its partners and the final conference of the project. Available here (5 MB, pdf).